Satan 
Picermpetan 





a 











MEMORIAL LIFE AND WORKS 


OF 


DWIGHT L. MOODY 


THE WORLD'S GREATEST 
EVANGELIST. 


A COMPLETE AND AUTHENTIC REVIEW OF THE MARVELOUS 
CAREER OF THE MOST REMARKABLE RELIGIOUS 
~ GENERAL IN HISTORY 


BY 


REV. J. W. HANSON, A. M., D. D. 


Author of “Religions of the World,” ‘‘Manna,” ‘‘Cloud of 
Witnesses;” and other religious works. 


INTRODUCTION BY 
REV. H. W. THOMAS, D. D. 
The Celebrated Pastor of People’s Church, Chicago. 


EULOGY BY 
HON. J. V. FARWELL 
The Millionaire Philanthropist and Co-Worker of Mr. Moody. 


PUBLISHED BY 
i Le NICHOES 6e-CO: 


ATLANTA, GA. NAPERVILLE, ILL. TORONTO, ONT. 


SOLD ONLY BY SUBSCRIPTION 


1900 





By ROBT. O. LAW, 
In the office of the Librarian of Congress at W 


PeSBlisib Rs | REFACE. 


Spurgeon was called the pastoral evangelist ; 
Chalmers, the parish evangelist; Finney, the 
revival evangelist; Howard, the prison evan- 
gelist; Whitefield, the field evangelist; Shaftes- 
bury, the philanthropic evangelist; Bliss, the 
singing evangelist; McCauley, the evangelist 
of the outcast, but Dwight L. Moody was 
the evangelist of the people. 

For forty years his name was known among 
the English speaking people. For nearly forty 
years his sayings have been household words; 
for nearly forty years his stories have been 
told at almost every Christian fireside. His 
life, with its peculiarly fitting ending, is known 
in a general way to the great majority of the 
people, but few of them realize what a great 
man he was. Born in New England poverty, 
but with an indomitable spirit, he made his 
mark as a boy even in wise old Boston. As 
a young man in Chicago, he demonstrated his 
stability in commerce as well as in religion. 
He founded, by his energy, one of the largest 
Sunday-schools in the world out of apparently 
the poorest material to be found on the Ameri- 
can continent. 

A few years later, he electrified Europe with 
his methods and thousands of people turned 

5 


330455 


6 | PUBLISHERS’ PREFACE. 


from ways of sin to ways of righteousness. He 
came home and founded the great schools at 
Northfield where thousands of young men and 
women can procure an education at a nominal 
figure. Thirty buildings stand as a monument 
to him there. In Chicago, the great Bible 
Institute, with its auxiliary features, where 
thousands of young men and women, desirous 
of greater insight into the Holy Scriptures daily 
assemble and listen to explanations of the 
Bible. 

The present work was commenced early in 
1898 and is the result of months of careful 
research and many interviews with personal 
friends of Mr. Moody. It embodies a com- 
plete account of the great evangelist’s marvel- 
ous career from his birth to his death, enliv- 
ened with anecdotes contributed from all parts 
of the world. The labor of arranging, select- 
ing and condensing the vast amount of material 
gathered during the past two years, was very 
great and it was found necessary to omit a 
large amount of very interesting and valuable 
matter in order to keep the work within the 
lines of a popular life of Mr. Moody. Many of 
the illustrations were taken specially for the 
work by our own photographer; others were 
redrawn from designs furnished our special 
artist. 


INTRODUCTION 





By H. W. THOMAS, D. D., 


Pastor of People’s Church, Chicago. 


WIGHT L. MOODY would have been a 
|) marked man in almost any field of active 
affairs, and simply because of his large 
natural abilities. That he was great as an 
evangelist was owing mainly to his special 
adaptation to that form of work; his glad and en- 
tire consecration to it, and his wonderful power 
to use others, to marshal and control forces 
to inspire minds and hearts with his own pur- 
pose and earnestness. 

Brother Moody understood well the power 
of numbers, of large assemblies, and the value 
of sympathetic emotion. Hence he did not go 
forth alone to gather and reach the outside 
world, as did Wesley; but sought and secured 
the united action of the preachers, the mem- 
bers and choirs of the evangelical churches, and 
this he could do sincerely because he saw 
nothing vital in the lines that differentiated the 
denominations, and felt that their coming to- 
gether would be helpful to each; that the com- 


590455 


8 INTRODUCTION. 


mon life of all would be quickened and en- 
larged. 

No one, perhaps, has done so much to lessen 
the lines of separation, and so much to unite all 
in the great law and life of love. Had he 
sought to found a new denomination, this united 
action would not have been possible, for the 
movement would naturally have been looked 
upon as competitive. Brother Moody did not 
wish to found another denomination; he 
thought there were too many already; but he 
did, and wisely, too, look to the perpetuation of 
his own spirit and work in one central church 
and through the educational power of training 
schools, and in this was successful through 
his singular ability to reach men of large 
means, and to bring other workers into the 
field. 

There will not be another Moody; as there 
will not be another Beecher, Simpson or Philips 
Brooks; it is not Nature’s God’s way of work- 
ing. Brother Moody filled a needed place in 
his time; other minds and hearts will come forth 
for the needs of new conditions. 

We all loved and honored Brother Moody, 
and pray that his inspiration, his consecration, 
his great love for man and God, may be caught 
up and carried forward to bless a world. 


H. W. THOMAS. 


DWIGHT L. MOODY. 


By JOHN V. FARWELL. 


I never felt so small as when requested to 
give in words, as an observer from its begin- 
ning until his translation, some sort of a digest 
of Dwight L. Moody’s character. 

While lying in his coffin in the Northfield 
church, that gust of wind that opened enough 
of one window blind to let in the light of the 
sun on his kindly face, suggests to my mind 
that only the mind of God—the only source of 
light of life—can measure a mind and _ heart 
aflame with the inspiration of the Almighty, 
from whence he drew his power for daily use 
in his work. 

Environment and want of education under 
such a heavenly ray of light, was no obstruc- 
tion to his being lifted out of weakness into a 
power sufficient to confound the mightiest 
men, who had any less communion with God. 

Look at yonder dirty pool, too foul for use. 
We expect nothing from it to help mankind. 

Look again. The sun, with its silent chem- 


istry, has in due time drawn it up into heaven’s 
9 


10 DWIGHT L. MOODY. 


blue, and on fhe very spot where it cursed the 
earth, is a garden of flowers, watered by its 
dew drops, and in the heavens above is God’s 
rainbow of promise, painted by its mystery of 
heavenly art while on its way to earth, to 
water that garden of the beautiful, and fields 
plowed and planted by man, that the earth may 
bring forth bread for the hungry. 

The natural man with his earthly lusts and 
passions is that dirty pool, only needing the 
potentialities of heaven’s light and heat to trans- 
form its stagnant elements into the beautiful 
and useful. 

Mr. Moody was thus transformed by his own 
deliberate choice, placing himself under the 
hands of the Almighty, to be used in His 
vineyard. 

Thus equipped, his works were well done, 
and it may be well said of him, “Blessed are 
the dead which die in the Lord, for their works 
do follow them.” 

A mighty man has finished his work on 
earth. The oldest book in existence records, 
“There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration 
of the Almighty giveth him understanding.” 
Moody’s spirit—or mental ability—was natur- 
ally of a superior order. Had he taken up 
polities he would have made an exceptional 
statesman. Having taken up with Christ as 


DWIGHT L. MOODY. 11 


Lord for his life work, the inspiration of the 
Almighty gave him a power in Christian work 
second to no one in the apostolic succession 
from Saints Peter and Paul until December 
22d A. D., 1899, measured by the results of 
his ministry, practically surrounding the globe 
in its influence, and nearly so in his travels. 

The key to the understanding of all this is 
that Moody’s body, soul and spirit, by his own 
deliberate choice, were consecrated to that 
ministry. He once heard a man say, ‘The 
world has yet to see how much one man, 
wholly consecrated to God, can accomplish in 
this world for Him.” ‘Then,’ said Moody, 
“T will be that man, for I can consecrate my all 
to Fim.” 

He began his work as a mission Sunday- 
school drummer, and from that graduated in 
regular succession into Superintendent of one 
of the largest mission Sunday-schools in the 
city, President of the Young Men’s Christian 
Association, and the world’s exangelist, the 
highest office in Christ’s ministry. 

When he left a successful business for this 
calling, he had accumulated about $12,000, all 
of which was invested in mission enterprises at 
the time he was most busy with the work of 
the Y.M.C. A. A little prayer meeting of 
three asked for wisdom to procure a building 


12 DWIGHT L. MOODY. 


for that association, and in answer Mr. Moody 
began and finished the first building ever erected 
for the use of a Y. M. C. A. on earth, represent- 
ing Christian union, and in his work in Chicago, 
after returning from his London mission, he 
raised the money to free it from debt, after 
having been twice burned to the ground, but 
for this timely effort of his the present magnifi- 
cent temple of the Y. M. C. A. would not be 
one of the world’s bést material monuments of 
Christian unity (for which he stood) that was 
ever erected. 

The lineal descendants of his first enterprise, 
the North Market Hall Mission Sunday-school, 
are the Bible Institute and the Chicago 
Avenue Church, now filled to its utmost capa- 
city twice every Sunday to hear the plain testi- 
mony of Jesus, which theangel said to John was 
“the spirit of prophecy,” or preaching; and 
conversions follow every service as a rule, and 
some times scores and hundreds attend the 
second meeting which follows the evening 
service. 

Being dead, he yet speaks through these in- 
stitutions as clearly as did the angels when 
they sang “Glory to God in the Highest” and 
“On earth Peace and Good Will to Men,” at 
the birth of Christ, through whose Life more 
abundant now given to men, that song is to be 


DWIGHT L. MOODY. 13 


perpetuated through the agency of such men 
to the end of time. 

The meaning of the removal of such work- 
men from the harvest field at such a time as this 
is beyond our ken, when, instead of one re- 
movala regiment of them seems to be needed for 
fields white for the harvest, and the world one as 
it never was before by the power of steam and 
electricity, as well as the power of Christian 
civilization in the strongest nations on earth. 
Yea, and when there are calls on Moody’s 
desk from Europe and America that would re- 
quire months, if not years, to fill if he were 
here to do it. 

Why? God only knows. 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATION] 


PAGE. 
¥ Dwight-L, Moody... 05.020 0sias ached Frontispiece 
METRE SOWEL.” «ois inieoisiojeis wreicicjcle- uiste.ds ele o + 2/15 atom 20 

Moody Family Gathering, 1867... 2... ....+++.sesseeen 29 
~ Period Pictures' of Mr. Moody. <<.) -/:..+ <1 ons ieee 39 
The Old and the New ... 0.0.40. 4002.00. 400000 «23 49 
WV Mr. Moody’s Missionary Pony...:......:0.«+0s00sseneeen 59 
yevorth Side Tabernacle... fo 5. 2. esc secs seg se eee 77 

PP BSShns ectGet su gc he ooe se oe sine gine a1 5 ee een 87 

fia wD SANKECY ni crelete © «cin loie aie\n cle eheiniclelal=l~ oe -iele eee 97 
vMr. Moody’s Characteristic Attitude .. ..............006- 115 

Mr. Moody ona Morning Drive... 27... 2... «2 see 125 

Free Church, Assembly Hall, Edinburgh................ 135 

Exhibition Hall) "Dublin... . 6.0 sc jee. 0c cnc onto s 2 eee 153 

Haymarket Opera House. 22.05... 000+. sels 171 

Characteristic Page from Mr. Moody's Bible............. 182 

Farewell: Meeting at Glasgow ....... <0... = +5: Cena 189 

“Chicago Avent: Churell, .....6..~ s:600.0~ +s 00c% ssi eee 207 
yInterior of\Chicago’Ghurch’..0.<..<-2.2 seen seen IR - 225 
The Empty Chair....... sa eiSidje.cBls sieltveisiectelniere es ae en 243 
The Bible He Preached From.........00.5<- =< 00s se pee 261 
“Moody Bible Institutes. 52505. < cccce news eins ee 279 

Bible Institute Library. .). 0.025.080. ec coe see cls «cee 297 

A Music Lesson, Bible Institute ...................0ccece 315 
/ Pastor’s Study, Chicago Avenue Church ................. 333 

Colportage Cottage ......... wale wld 4 o Gie Shlen eee 351 

The Funeral Bier 0. .0o ces os .cjck esos sivistare ooo ieee 367 

Congregational Church, Northfield...................... 387 

Recitation Halloo.. s suisiscldess 6c lovinciecets cc crecee ene eee 405 

Marquand Memorial Halls. 5 559. < 6 <00.s czsce0 see eee 423 

Mt: Hermon School), 5. oos,..0..c6.2210 sejeieis © saint a Ce 441 

“East, Hall, Northfield'Seminary:.....5..<.s-« + co esse eee 459 
Auditorium, Northeld....0.6 0 .:c.0saececk acd «ssc eee 477 
Retitation Hall, Northfield o: 2-0-6 acc ceiniciten mice eee 495 


14 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER. PAGE. 
I. Ancestors of Mr. Moody—Statement that every 


other Moody family contained a preacher— 
Three great Moody’s, one in the seventeenth, 
one in the eighteenth, and one in the nine- 
(aera CHAIN Cosbcws Cacbae dooreno>so0Raae 21-33 


II. Moody’s early life—Left to the care of his 
mother at four—Eldest brother runs away— 
Some early escapades—First trip away from 


III. Life in Boston—Gets a place in his uncle’s store 
—Forced to attend church—His conversion— 
Compelled to wait six months before being 
admitted to membership................... 48-57 


IV. Beginning of his career—Secures employment in 
Chicago, and invents new methods of secur- 
ing customers—His first Sunday-school—Some 
hardwexpericuees ore yartacciokinn was ee ee 57-67 


V. President of the Y. M.C. A. for four years— 
Agent of the United States Christian Commis- 
sion—Comforts the wounded and dying on the 
DAtEe eld el cic actclealew cislars Sia: craeeis/.s vinvsis s 68-72 


16 CONTENTS. 
CHSPTER. PAGE. 
Vi. First meeting with Bliss—Life of the great 
singing evangelist—Some of the great songs he 
wrote—His end at Ashtabula.............. 73-80 
VII. Sermons on P. P. Bliss—The great evangelist 
praises the dead singer—Corrects reports about 
money received from song books........ . 81-89 
VIII. First meeting with Sankey—An attachment 
formed which lasts through life—Story of the 
mf great singer’s early days. ........0.sseam 90-94 
TX., Side lights on the character of Mr. Moody—His 
9 likes and dislikes—Some men he admired—His 
belief in ‘advertising:.... .< 3)...-. eee Q5-1II 
X. English visit of Moody and Sankey — Great 
awakening in England, Ireland, and Scot- 
BAT tare iose ciclelojeic oi siele\aietela’<leiel sins) pieisie/iet anna 112-127 
( XI. The Birmingham meeting—New method of se- 
\ curing attendants is successful—Described by 
mi an English) criti@is cae sicceicii tonto meinen 128-139 
XII. Meetings at Boston—Great gospel campaign at 
Bragg yi nee eee orincacins 140-146 
XIIL Mr. Moody’s crisp sayings.............++6. 147-168 
XIV... Aneedotese« ..cesadn ad paste aaumencntaemts 169-182 
XV. Mr. Moody’s Bible—Peculiar manner he had of 


marking them—Death of his mother—Connec- 
tion with Miss Willard...............000 183-186 


CONTENTS. 17 


CHAPTER. PAGE. 
XVI. The Kansas City meeting—Beginning of his 
illness— He cannot understand his failing 


SESS ore se coc eso di coresentbsesseosae 187-196 
DOM ss DeathiOl MOOdYywacscmicc.c asic Sacnmasce ose 197-204 
AVIRE IS a bhe lASt farewell. so 5 ocsiice sc coves enacees 205-231 


XIX. Eulogies by many eminent men in all parts of 
HHETCOUNERY 2-2 eae oe ee cele oe se ese oe 232-259 


XX. Editorial comment—The leading newspapers of 
the country discuss his place in history. ..260-277 


XXI. Memorial expressions by ministers in different 
cities, giving condensed accounts of his life and 
WOE Role once Sie oc oe ota eemee Seeger 278-293 


XXII. Last of the group— Splendid tribute by Dr. 


AMIS ocr oon a ie ero dine eames spies eure 294-303 

Mee <The Northfield schools: . ... 20. ..c.0ecsess 304-306 
Se Great religious Tevivals Pius betwen welac sereece 407-312 
_ XKV. Revival Sermores. .. esc oo cb ca Senne. cescncs 313-336 
DEV les SCEMON— PIE osc vin voce cepts ccwece erence 337-355 
DOVE Setmon—Repentance. 0% soc scsccerececeves 356-376 
XXVIII. Sermon—Excused................c.ccc eens 377-401 
XXIX. Sermon—No room for Him................ 402-418 


18 CONTENTS, 


CHAPTER. PAGE. 
XXXI. Sermon—Tekel. ... ...5.0c0s0+ ccs ene 440-464 
XXXII. Sermon—No difference.................... 465-481 
XXXII. Sermoy—Grace. <0). .<.ic « «oisoreleieleie eee 482-501 
XXXIV. Sermon—Comes5 028 occ... cco 2 eee eee 2502-512 


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“And behold a sower went forth to sow.” 


“THE SOWER.” 


Dedicated to Dwight L. Moody. 


Copyright, 1900, by Robt. O. Law. 


CHAPTER I. 


THE ANCESTORS OF MR. MOODY. 


Dwight L. Moody descended from a line of min- 
isters. It has been said that every other Moody 
family contained a preacher. Some of them have 
been men of great force and character, and have 
made more than a passing impression on New Eng- 
land history. The family has been noted for lon- 
gevity, and the extent of the literary attainments of 
its members; their bold persevering habits; their 
spirit of enterprise, their independence of mind and 
character, irrespective of the popular will, and for 
the similarity and purity of their religious faith. The 
average age of seventeen ancestors of Mr. Moody, 
ranging from the year 1633 to 1847, was 67 years. 

Mr. William Moody, the principal progenitor of 
the Moody family in New England, came according 
to the best records obtainable, from Wales, in 1633, 
wintered at Ipswich, and removed to Newbury with 
the first settlers of that place in 1635. Here he was 
admitted a Freeman and received a grant of ninety- 
two acres of land. Thereisatradition that he was a 
blacksmith by trade, and another that he was asad- 
dler, and it is very probable that he did a little of 
both. It is known, however, that he was the first per- 
sonin New England to adopt the practice of shoeing 


oxen to enable them to walk on the ice, and he even 
21 
2 


22 THE ANCESTORS OF MR. MOODY. 


acquired the appellation ‘‘The learned black 
smith.’’ 

Since the Moody family came to America it has 
never lacked an exceptionally great preacher of the 
gospel. Joshua belonged to the Seventeenth cen- 
tury, Samuel to the Eighteenth, and Dwight to the 
Nineteenth. 

Rev. Joshua Moodey, a son of William Moody, 
although he spelled his name differently, was born 
in England in 1633, about a year before his father 
came to this country. He received his early educa- 
tion at Newbury, and was prepared for admission to 
college by Rev. Thomas Parker. He was a grad- 
uate of Harvard in 1653, after which he began the 
study of divinity and early began to preach. He 
began his ministerial labors at Portsmouth, N. H., 
early in the year 1658, at which place he laid the 
foundation and eventually gathered the first Con- 
gregational church in that place. Asa minister he 
was considered zealous and faithful and for many 
years the church flourished under his pastoral care, 
during which time he distinguished himself by his 
independent and faithful manner of teaching and 
the strictness of his church discipline. Mr. Moodey 
became involved in a dispute with Mr. Cranfield, 
who was lieutenant-governor of the province, and 
who did not like the minister because he thought he 
stood in the way of his schemes for personal 
aggrandizement. In 1684 a Scotch ketch had been 
seized by a collector and carried out of the harbor 
in the night. The owner, a member of the church, 
swore upon the trial that he had not a hand in send- 
ing her away and that he knew nothing about it, 
but the circumstances were such that there was 


THE ANCESTORS OF MR. MOODY. 23 


strong suspicion that he had perjured himself. He 
found means, however, to settle the matter with 
Cranfield and the collector, but Mr. Moodey judged 
it necessary to do something to vindicate the honor 
of his church, so he requested of the Governor 
copies of the evidence for the purpose of instituting 
an examination. Cranfield ordered the minister to 
desist and threatened him with the consequences in 
case of refusal, but Moodey would not be intimidated 
and preached a sermon upon swearing and the evil 
of false swearing. The Governor in order to wreak 
his vengeance determined to put the uniformity act 
into operation; by a statute then in force, ministers 
were required to admit to the Lord’s Supper all per- 
sons who should desire it, who were ‘‘of suitable 
years and not vicous.’’ Cranfield gave notice that 
he and several others intended on the following 
Sunday to partake of the sacrament. His demand 
was not complied with, in consequence of which 
Moodey was indicted and imprisoned for thirteen 
weeks. After his persecution in Portsmouth he fled 
to Boston and was received in open arms by the 
members of the First Church. Even while at Ports- 
mouth he took a great interest in Harvard college 
and succeeded in raising a fund of sixty pounds a 
year for seven years to erect a brick building on the 
Harvard ground. On the death of President Rog- 
ers, July 2, 1684, he was elected his successor, as 
president of Harvard College. He modestly declined 
the offer, preferring his situation as assistant min- 
ister in the First Church. He was a strong oppon- 
ent to superstition, was involved in innumerable 
arguments and did much in securing the release of 
persons who were arrested in Salem and Boston for 


24 THE ANCESTORS OF MR. MOODY. 


witchcraft. He went back to Portsmouth in 1692 
after many solicitations from his old flock. He died 
on the 4th of July, 1697, in the 65th year of his age, 
and his funeral sermon was preached by Dr. Cot- 
ton Mather. 

Rev. Samuel Moody of the First Parish of York, 
Maine, was the fourth son of Caleb Moody of New- 
bury, and a grandson of William Moody, who came 
from England. He was born at Newbury on the 
4th of January, 1675, and was a nephew of Rev. 
Joshua Moodey. Of his early life little is known, 
but he finished his education at Harvard when he 
was twenty-two, and graduated with honors in the 
year 1697. The next year he commenced preaching 
in York and was regularly ordained; and settled 
over the First Parish in that place in December, 
1700, where he continued an eminently useful and 
successful minister of the gospel for nearly fifty 
years. 

He was a man noted for his piety and was greatly 
beloved and no less feared by the people of his 
charge. He was distinguished alike for his eccen- 
tricities, his zeal as a man of God, his remarkable 
faith and fervency in prayer, and his uncommon 
benevolence. Histories of religion in New England 
place him as the equal of any gentleman of the 
clergy of that day. Previous to his settlement at 
York, the whole town had been destroyed by the 
Indians, fifty people having been killed and one 
hundred taken captive. 

He petitioned the Earl of Bellemont, who was 
then Governor-in-Chief, and through him the council 
and representatives of the province assembled in 
June, 1699, for a competent maintenance as a chap- 


THE ANCESTORS OF MR. MOODY. 25 


lain to the garrison at York, in which position he 
had served for upward of a year, and the council 
granted him twelve pounds out of the public treas- 
ury. 

He was a man of prayer, and remarkable for his 
importunity at the throne of grace. An instance 
of his power of prayer, is one cited against the 
French fleet in 1746. France had fitted out a fleet 
with the intention of destroying the British colonies. 
This fact was known in thi§ country, and as the col- 
onists could not expect any aid from England, of 
course they were very much exercised over the 
event. Moody had recourse to prayer. He appointed 
a day for the purpose, praying against this fleet, and 
he brought to view the expressions made use of in 
the Scriptures against Sennacherib; ‘‘Put a hook in 
his nose and a bridle in his lips; turn him back again 
by the way that he came, that he shall not shoot an 
arrow here nor cast up a bank; but by the way he 
came, cause him to return.’’ By and by the old 
gentleman waxed warm and raised his hands and his 
voice and cried out, ‘‘Good Lord, if there is no other 
way of defeating their enterprise, send a storm upon 
them and sink them in the ship.’’ It was found 
afterward that not far from that time a tremendous 
tempest burst upon that fleet, and foundered many 
of them. A remnant of the fleet got into Halifax, 
and the commander was so disheartened, thinking 
all the rest were lost that he put an end to his own 
life, and the second in command did the same, and | 
the third in command was not competent for the 
undertaking. A mortal sickness prevailed among 
the survivors, and great numbers of them laid their 


26 THE ANCESTORS OF MR. MOODY. 


bones in Halifax. They finally packed their all and 
went back to France without striking a blow. 

His faith was emulated in the Nineteenth century 
by his descendant. A story is told of him that he 
believed that if he asked the Lord, He would pro- 
vide for every living thing. One morning his wife 
told him they had nothing for dinner. He replied 
that this was nothing to her: what she had to do 
was to set the table as usual when the dinner hour 
came. Accordingly, when the hour came, she set 
the table, spread the cloth and put on the plates, 
and just then a neighbor brought in a good dinner 
all cooked. 

On another occasion Mrs. Moody told him on Sat- 
urday morning that they had no wood. ‘‘Well,’’ he 
replied, ‘‘I must go into my study and God will pro- 
vide for us.’’ During the day a Quaker called in 
and asked for Mr. Moody. Mr. Moody appeared and 
the Quaker said to him, ‘‘Friend Moody, I was 
carrying a load of wood to neighbor A. B., and just 
as I got opposite thy door my sled broke down, and 
if thee will accept of the wood, I will leave it here.’’ 
Mr. Moody told him it was very acceptable as he 
was entirely out. 

His daughter, who lived in Massachusetts, told of 
the time when her father was officiating in the pul- 
pit of her husband, who was a minister. At the 
time great ravages were being made by the canker 
worm, which well-nigh destroyed everything green. 
On Sunday morning when they went to the meet- 
ing house, the canker worms were so numerous that 
one could scarce set down his foot without crushing 
them by the score. Mr. Moody’s text was from 
Mal. iii; 2, ‘‘I will rebuke the devourer for your 


THE ANCESTORS OF MR. MOODY. 27 


sakes.”” As he warmed up he seemed filled with a 
sort of prophetic fire and appealed to his hearers as 
follows: ‘‘Brethren, here is the promise of God. 


Do you believe it? Will you repose full confidence 
in it? I believe it and feel an assurance in my soul 
that God will bring it to pass.’’ 

It was noticed that when the service, which was 
long, had been finished, the destoyer had disap- 
peared. Not one of the insects that had been so 
multitudinous was seen around. Historians say 
that they were seen lying dead in little windrows 
on the shore of the creek, which ran through the 
town. 

In another particular the modern Evangelist 
emulated his distinguished ancestor. The latter 
refused to receive a stipulated salary, but rather 
chose to live on the voluntary contributions of the 
people. It has been said that he literally knew not 
anything that he possessed. In one of his sermons 
he mentioned that he had been supported for twenty 
years in a way most pleasing to him, and that he 
had been under no necessity of spending one hour 
in a week in care for the world. Yet he was some- 
times reduced to want, though his confidence in 
God never failed him. 

His benevolence was unbounded. He wife, as 
well as others, thought he was too lavish of his little, 
when anyone applied to him for assistance in dis- 
tress. To put acheck upon his liberality and give 
him time to consider, she made him a new purse, 
but when she had put the change into it she tied the 
strings into several knots, so that he might have 
time for reflection while untying them. Not long 
after this a poor person asked him for alms, He 


28 THE ANCESTORS OF MR. MOODY. 


took out his purse and attempted to untie the 
strings, but finding it difficult, he told the person he 
believed the Lord intended he should give him the 
whole, so he gave the purse and change together. 
The old lady’s experiment on this occasion was 
rather a losing one. 

Once when he was going to Boston to attend a 
great convention or conference, he saw a poor man 
in the hands of the officers, who were taking him 
to jail for debt. Father Moody inquired the amount 
for which he was to be imprisoned, and found that he 
had sufficient to defray the debt, which he immedi- 
ately did, and the poor man was liberated. He then 
turned to one of his Elders who accompanied him 
and said that he must depend upon him to bear the 
expense of the journey, as he had nothing left. 
The Elder ventured respectfully to question the 
propriety and prudence of his conduct in thus ren- 
dering himself so dependent, but the old clergyman 
replied: ‘‘Elder, does not the Bible asy, ‘Cast thy 
bread upon the waters and thou shalt find it after 
many days?’’’ Towards evening they reached the 
city and the talent and piety of Boston came out 
upon Boston Common to see the famous Father 
Moody. The Elder related the morning adventure 
and after they had retired to their lodgings, a 
waiter brought Father Moody a sealed packet. He 
opened it and found it contained the precise sum 
which he had given to the poor man in the morning. 
He turned to the Elder and exclaimed: ‘“‘I cast my 
bread upon the waters in the oe and behold 
it is returned to me in the evening.’ a 

His aptness for quoting and applying Scripture 
was known to be proverbial, He had a habit when 


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THE ANCESTORS OF MR. MOODY. 31 


performing table service, of quoting some passage 
of Scripture descriptive of the food provided; one 
of his parishoners desired to know what he could 
find in the Bible to suit Shell-fish, and provided a 
dinner of clams and invited Mr. Moody to dine with 
him. In returning thanks after the refreshment, 
he blessed the Lord that he not only furnished sup- 
plies from the produce of the fields and flocks and 
herds, but permitted them to ‘“‘suck of the abund- 
ance of the seas and of the treasures hid in the 
sand.’’ 

He was an extremely eccentric old fellow and 
numerous anecdotes are related on this particular 
phase of hischaracter. Atacertain time his church 
got into difficulty. At a church meeting, finding 
it difficult to get along, they concluded by his advice 
to adjourn for a season and pray for light and direc- 
tion. On the next Sabbath, Mr. Moody preached 
from the following text: 2 Chron. xx: 12. ‘‘Neither 
know we what to do, but our eyes are upon Thee.”’ 
After some introductory remarks, he stated this for 
his doctrine: ‘‘When a person or people are in such 
a situation that they know not what to do, they 
should not do they know not what, but their eyes 
should be unto the Lord for direction.’’ 

On another occasion while the old gentleman was 
on a journey to the Western part of Massachusetts, 
he called on a brother minister one Saturday, with 
a view to spending the Sabbath with him if agree- 
able. The man appeared very glad to see him and 
said: ‘‘I should be very glad to have you stop and 
preach with me to-morrow, but I feel almost ashamed 
to ask you.’’ ‘‘Why, what is the matter?’’ said Mr. 
Moody. ‘‘Our people have got into such a habit of 


32 THE ANCESTORS OF MR. MOODY. 


going out before the meeting is closed, that it seems 
to be an imposition upon a stranger.’’ ‘‘If that is 
all, I must and will stop and preach for you,’’ was 
Mr. Moody’s reply. When the Sabbath day came, 
and Mr. Moody had opened the meeting and named 
his text, he looked around on the assembly and said: 
‘‘My hearers, I am going to speak to two sorts of 
folks to-day, saints and sinners. Sinners, I am 
going to give you your portion first, and I would 
have your good attention.’’ When he had preached 
to them as long as he thought best, he paused and 
said: ‘‘There, sinners, I have done with you now; 
you take your hats and go out of the meeting house 
as soon as you please.’’ But they tarried and heard 
him through. 

He was remarkably successful as a minister, and 
many revivals were held in his church during his 
ministry, and it is said to have contained between 
300 and 400 members when he left it. His greatest 
revival, perhaps, wasin1741. The exact number he 
affliated with his church will perhaps never be 
known, as the records were destroyed when the 
church was burned the next year. 

The old man had as his guest that year the Rev. 
George Whitefield, the celebrated young minister, 
whose talents and fervent piety drew from the con- 
gregation to which he preached the, strongest 
expressions of praise. 

In 1745, two years before his death, he accompa- 
nied the American army as chaplain of the celebrated 
Cape Breton expedition. The old man, when Louis- 
burg was taken, shouldered an ax and went up to 
the images in the churches and actually cut them 


THE ANCESTORS OF MR. MOODY. 33 


down, as he had told his friends he would when he 
left home. 

He published several books, among which were 
‘“The Doleful State of the Damned, especially Such 
as go to Hell from under the Gospel,’’ ‘‘ Judas, the 
Traitor, Hung up in Chains to give Warnings to 
Professors that they Beware of Worldlimindedness 
and Hypocrisy; a Discourse concluding with a Dia- 
logue,’’ ‘‘A Sermon Preached to Children After 
Catechizing in the Town of York (Me.) July 25, 
1721,’ ““‘The Way to Get out of Debt, and the Way 
to Keep out of Debt.”’ 

Critics who have read these books declare that 
they compare well with those of Baxter. 

He died at the age of ninety, and the family were 
assembled in the room at the time, his son Joseph 
sitting behind him on the bed, holding him up in his 
arms. When he had ceased to breathe, the people in 
the room began to remark that he was gone, and his 
son exclaimed in a loud voice: ‘‘And Joseph shall 
put his hands upon thine eyes.’”’ He then put his 
hands around and closed his eyes, and laid the life- 
less body back on the bed. 

His remains lie buried in the common burying 
place near the meeting house in York, and on his 
tombstone is this inscription: ‘‘For his farther char- 
acter read Corinthians, 3d Chapter, and first six 
verses. ”’ 


CHAPTER II. 


MOODY’S EARLY LIFE. 


Dwight Lyman Moody was born in the town of 
Northfield, Mass., February 5th, 1837. Hewas the 
sixth child of Edwin Moody and Betsy Holton, who 
were married January 3, 1828. Nine children in 
all blessed the union of this couple, seven being sons 
and two daughters. The homestead consisted of 
several acres of typical Massachusetts land, most of 
which was of a stony character, and covered by a 
mortgage. The father tilled his acres in their season 
and at other times worked at his trade as a stone- 
mason. According tothe best accounts, he was not 
a successful business man, and the latter part of his 
life, as his family increased, was burdened with 
debts. His crushed spirit and business reverses 
caused his death after a few hours’ illness. Dwight 
was then only four years old, but the shock of that 
death made an impression upon him which he de- 
clared he had never forgotten. The death of the 
father was followed soon after by the birth of a twin 
boy andgirl. Thus Mrs. Moody was burdened with 
the care of a large family, the eldest of whom was 
only fifteen years. The old puritan idea, coupled 
with a mother’s love, made her anxious to keep her 
brood together, and she bravely set about caring for 


them all, and contrived to have each of the little 
34 : 


MOODY’S EARLY LIFE. 35 


hands earn something toward their support. They 
were taught to till the garden and do odd jobs for 
the neighbors. She wasa strict Unitarian of the old 
school, a creed much different from that professed 
in that denomination in latter days. / She was a firm 
believer in the Bible and its teachings, and drew 
therefrom the inspiration to make the life of her 
children dearer to the great Creator. It was her 
daily task and pleasure to teach them a little Bible 
lesson, and the Sabbath morning found them wend- 
_ ing their way to the church service and Sunday 
school. 

The eldest of the children was a boy of rugged 
mien who had an inclination to break away from his 
mother’s apron strings. He had read the literature 
of the plains, and wandered off into the world, as he 
thought, to seek a fortune. This was one of the 
great sorrows of the Moody family. The mother 
never lost hope; she was ever praying for the return 
of her boy. As time went on, the preparations for 
his home-coming were added to year by year. This 
was especially true of Thanksgiving time, a festival 
dear to the hearts of all New Englanders. For 
years no tidings of the wandering boy reached the 
mother; night after night her sleep was disturbed 
by a dread vision of him lying somewhere in the 
great cold world; perhaps suffering, while she had 
enough for comfort. She was constantly sending 
to the little postoffice for a letter; sometimes two 
or three times aday. She never stated that she 
expected a letter from ‘‘him’’—it was not necessary 
that she should do so, as the children learned by 
instinct that he was constantly in her mind. By 
common consent, his name was never mentioned, 


36 MOODY’S EARLY LIFE. 


except in the mother’s prayer, and then, when in 
the family. circle, only by inference. 

Years afterward, when the widow was getting 
old and the gray was replacing the black in her 
hair and she had almost given up hope of ever see- 
ing the lost one, a scene took place which changed 
her sorrow into joy. 

In the dusk of a New England summer evening, 
a long-bearded stranger approached the humble 
home and stood upon the porch gazing in the open 
door with eager eyes. He had passed through the 
village, looking to the right and left for familiar 
faces and familiar scenes. He had wandered in the 
village churchyard and visited the grave of his 
father, to learn if there was another beside it. The 
widow came to the door and bid the stranger in. 
The old eyes which had watched so long for his com- 
ing did not know him now. He was only a lank 
boy when he ran away, now he is a big sun-burned 
and whiskered man. 

The stranger did not move or speak in response 
to her invitation. He bowed his head and stood 
there reverently and humble in the presence of her 
whose love he had slighted and whose heart-strings 
he had almost broken. The sense of his ingrati- 
tude, and the memory of devotion and years of 
anxiety which were plainly stamped on that 
mother’s face, caused the tears to run from his 
eyes. These tears were the means by which his 
mother recognized him. 

‘‘T cannot come in,’’ said the son, ‘“‘until my 
mother has forgiven me.”’ 

It may be surmised that he did not stand out very 
long. It did not take that mother many seconds to 


MOODY’S EARLY LIFE. 37 


get her arms around the neck of that prodigal child. 
She had forgotten the sorrow of years, in the joy 
of seeing him once again. 

The Pastor of the Unitarian church where the 
Moodys worshiped was the Rev. Mr. Everett, and 
he was a faithful friend of the widow and her large 
family of children. | They were on his regular visit- 
ing list and he was constantly cheering them with 
pleasant words. It was he who settled the quarrels 
among the boys; it was he who gave them bright 
pieces of silver urging them to good deeds; it was 
he who bid the mother to keep on praying. 

At one time the great evangelist was taken into 
his home when but a mite of a boy, to run errands 
in the Pastor’s household. He was a vigorous lad 
and was familiar with all the pranks known to all 
the urchins of that period. The good minister’s 
patience was sorely tried on many occasions, but 
his jolly good-nature stayed the use of the rod. 

The old minister had quite an influence with the 
boy, but it was not nearly so far-reaching as that of 
his mother. She was almost the only one who 
could command implicit obedience. In the winter 
time young Moody attended the village school; but 
at that period of his existence he had little desire 
for learning, and at the end of his six or seven terms 
he knew but little. \Mr. Moody, in speaking of his 
school days, said: 

“I remember, when a boy, I used to go in a cer- 
tain school in New England, where we had a quick- 
tempered master who always kept a rattan. It 
was, ‘If you don’t do this, and you don’t do that, 
I’ll punish you.” I remember many times of this 
rattan being laid upon my back. Ithink I can 


38 MOODY’S EARLY LIFE. 


almost feel it now. He used to rule that school by 
the law. But after a while there were some parents 
who were in favor of controlling the school by love. 
A great many said you can never do that with 
those unruly boys, but after some talk it was at 
last decided to try it. I remember how we thought 
of the good time we would have that winter when 
the rattan would be out of the school. We thought 
we would then have all the fun we wanted; I re- 
member who the teacher was—it was a lady—and 
she opened the school with prayer. We hadn’t seen 
it done before and we were impressed, especially 
when she prayed that she might have grace and 
strength to rule the school with love. Well, the 
school went on for several weeks and we saw no 
rattan, but at last the rules were broken, and I 
think I was the first boy to break them. She told 
me to wait till after school and then she would see 
me. I thought the rattan was coming out sure, 
and stretched myself up in warlike attitude. After 
school, however, I didn’t see the rattan, but she sat 
down by me and told me how she loved me, and 
-how she had prayed to be able to rule that school 
by love, and concluded by asking me if I loved her 
to try and be a good boy. Her pleading reached 
my heart, and I never after caused her trouble.’’ 
Mr. Moody, one time, when talking of his early 
childhood, said that before he was four years old, 
the first thing he remembered was the death of his 
father; that he had been in business and failed, and 
that soon after his death the creditors came in and 
took everything. He said it seemed that one calam- 
ity after another came along and swept over the 
entire household; the coming of the twins in a 


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MOODY’S EARLY LIFE. 41 


month after the death of the father, the rapacity of 
the creditors, and the illness of the mother, together - 
with the demoralized state of the family, rendered 
the household anything but acongenial home. It 
was at this time that the elder son became a wan- 
derer. : 
Another incident of Mr. Moody’s boyhood days is 
related by him as follows: ‘‘I was in a field one day 
with a man who was hoeing. He was weeping, 
and he told me a strange story, which I have never 
forgotten. He said that when he left home, his 
mother gave him this text, ‘Seek first the Kingdom 
of God,’ but he paid no heed to it. He said when 
he got started in life, and his ambition to get money 
was gratified, it would be time enough then to seek 
the Kingdom of God. He went from one town to an- 
other and got nothing to do. When Sunday came, he 
went into the village church and what was his great 
surprise to hear the minister give out the text, ‘Seek 
first the Kingdom of God.’ He said the text went 
down to the bottom of his heart, but thought it was 
but his mother’s prayer following him, and that 
some one must have written to that minister about 
him. He felt very uncomfortable, and when the 
meeting was over, he could not get that sermon out 
of hismind. He went away to another village, and 
at the end of the week, went into another church, 
and he heard the minister give out the same text, 
‘Seek first the Kingdom of God.’ He felt sure this 
time that it was the prayers of his mother, but he 
said calmly and deliberately, ‘No, I will first get 
wealth.’ He said he went on, and did not go intoa 
church for a few months, but the first place of wor- 
pips he did go into, he heard the third minister 


42 MOODY’S EARLY LIFE. 


preach a sermon from the same text. He tried to 
stifle his feelings, he tried to get the sermon out of 
his mind, and he resolved that he would keep away 
from church altogether. For a few years, he 
never entered a church door. ‘My mother died,’ 
he said, ‘and the text kept coming into my mind, 
and I said,‘‘I will try to become a Christian.’ ’’ The 
tears rolled down his cheeks as he said, ‘I could 
not. No sermons ever touched me. My heart is 
as hard as stone.’ I could not understand what it 
was all about; it was fresh to me then. I went to 
Boston and got converted, and the first thought that 
came to me was about this man. When I went 
home, Iasked my mother about him. She said they 
had taken him to an insane asylum, and to every 
one who went there he pointed with his finger up- 
ward, and told him to seek first the Kingdom of 
God. I went to see him, and I found him ina rock- 
ing-chair, with a vacant, idiotic look upon him. As 
soon as he saw me, he pointed to me and said: 
“Young man, seek first the Kingdom or God.’ 
Reason had gone, but the text was there.’’ 

One of Mr. Moody’s brothers was employed in a 
store at Greenfield, a short distance from the family 
home, and it was so lonesome there for him that he 
wanted young Dwight to be near him for company. 
So when he came home one cold Saturday night in 
the month of November, he told the boy that he had 
a place for him. Dwight didn’t want to go, but 
after the matter was talked over by the family, he 
decided that the next morning he would visit the 
man, and if the ‘conditions were to his liking, he 
might accept the place. In one of his sermons, Mr. 


MOODY’S EARLY LIFE. 43 


Moody tells thatincident. Hesaid that the brotHers 
started off in the early morning, and when they got 
to the top of the hill, they looked back at the home, 
and he thought that this would be the last time that 
he would ever see it, and he cried asif his heart 
would break. This he continued until he arrived 
at Greenfield. There his brother introduced him to 
an old man who was so old that he could not milk 
his cows and do the chores, and young Dwight was- 
to run his errands and go to school. Mr. Moody 
said that he looked at the old man, and thought 
that he was cross, and that he looked at his wife, 
and thought that she was crosser than the old man. 
He said that when he had stayed there an hour, it 
seemed like a week, and then he went around to his 
brother and said: 

“Iam going home.”’ 

‘‘What are you going home for?’ asked his 
brother. 

“‘T am homesick,’’ Dwight said. 

“*Oh, well, you will get over it in a few days.”’ 

‘“*T never will, I don’t want to,’’ said the boy. 

‘*You will get lost if you start home now, it is 
getting dark.’’ 

Dwight was frightened then, as he was only about 
ten years old, and he said, “‘I will go at daybreak 
to-morrow morning.’’ 

His brother then took him to a shop window 
where they had some jack-knives, and jew’s-harps 
and dolls, and other things that boys are supposed 
to like, with the idea of diverting his mind, but what 
did the lonesome boy care for those old jack-knives, 
or jew’s-harps, or dolls? He wanted to get back 
home to his mother and brothers. -It seemed as 


44 MOODY'S EARLY LIFE. 


though his heart was breaking. -All at once his 
brother said: 

‘‘Dwight, here comes a man that will give youa 
cent.’’ 

‘*How do you know he will?’’ the boy asked. 

“‘Oh, he gives every new boy that comes to town 
a cent,’’ said his brother. 

Dwight brushed away his tears, for he would not 
have him see that he had been crying, and he got 
right in the middle of the sidewalk, where he could 
not help but see him, and kept his eyes right upon 
him. He always remembered how that old man 
looked as he came tottering down the sidewalk. He 
remembered the bright, cheerful, sunny face. 
When the man came opposite to where he was, he 
stopped, took Dwight’s hat off, put his hand on his 
head and said to his brother: 

““This boy is new in town, isn’t he?’’ 

“Yes, sir, he has just come to-day,’ 
brother. 

Young Moody watched to see if he would put his 
hand into his pocket; he was thinking of that cent. 
The old man began to talk to him so kindly that he 
soon forgot all aboutit. He told him the story of God 
and His only Son, and how wicked men had killed 
Him, and how He had died forall. He talked only 
five minutes, but he had him fascinated, and then 
he put his hand into his pocket, and took out a brand 
new cent, a copper that looked just like gold. This 
he gave him, and the boy thought it was gold, and 
he held it very tight. He never felt so rich before. 
“*‘T do not know what became of that cent,’’ he said 

‘in speaking of the affair. ‘‘I have always regretted 
that I did not keep it, but I can feel the pressure of 


’ 


said his 


MOODY’S EARLY LIFE. 45 


that old man’s hand upon my head to this day. 
Fifty years have rolled away, and I can hear those 
kind words ringing yet. I shall never forget the 
act. He put the cent at usury, and that cent has 
cost me a great many dollars.’’ 

Mr. Moody used to tell astory in which he related 
how he and the other boys in the neighborhood, in 
the spring of the year, when the snow had melted 
away from the New England hills, would take a 
piece of glass, and hold it up to the warm rays of 
the sun, and that these rays would strike through 
the glass, and set the woods and grass on fire, and 
that these escapades caused the neighbors much 
trouble and anxiety. 

Mr. Moody said that when he was a boy, his 
mother used to send him out to get a birch stick to 
whip him with, when it was necessary that he be 
punished, which was quite often. He said that at 
first he used to stand off from the rod as far as he 
could, but that he soon learned that the whipping 
hurt him more that way, and so after that he always 
‘went as near his mother as he could, and found that 
she could not strike him so hard. 

He said that among the other things which he did 
on the farm, was the hoeing of corn, and that he 
used to hoe it so badly in order to get over as much 
ground as he could, that at night he had to put down 
a stick so as to know next morning where he had 
left off. 

Mr. Moody said he had little faith in prayer in his 
boyhood days, but that faith came to him in the fol- 
lowing manner. He was creeping under a heavy 
fence, and it fell down and caught him, so that he 
sould not get away. He struggled until he was 


46 MOODY'S EARLY LIFE. 


quite exhausted, and then began tocry for help, but 
he was so far from any house no one heard him. 
He then began to think that he should have to die 
away up there on the mountain all alone, but then 
he happened to remember that maybe God would 
help him, and so he asked Him, and he said that he 
was greatly surprised to see that he could lift the 
rails so easily. 

It was at the earnest entreaty of his mother that 
in the latter part of his school days, he attempted 
to do some hard studying. His last term at school 
was in the winter of his seventeenth year, but his 
resolution to gain a little knowledge came so late, 
that although he studied very hard, it availed him 
little. 

Whatever religious impressions he had felt in 
childhood, seemed to have been covered out of sight, 
and he grew up to bea young man with no other 
piety in him than the love of his mother anda 
sturdy determination to be an honest and successful 
man. He was endowed with a determination that 
he would succeed somehow, and his deficiencies in 
education were over-balanced by a bold push aided 
by a ready wit, which carried him over many diffi- 
culties, before which a wiser but less courageous 
boy would have quailed in despair. } 


CHAPTER? Ii. 


LIFE IN BOSTON. 


Young Moody at the age of seventeen left North- 
field with his mother’s permission to seek employ- 
ment. He first went to Clinton, where he hada 
brother who was a clerkina store, but finding noth- 
ing there to suit him, he pushed onto Boston. His 
uncle, Samuel Holton, a successful merchant of Bos- 
ton, had visited the old home a little while before, 
and Dwight had asked him for a place in his boot 
and shoe store. The uncle, knowing what a wild 
young colt he was, had refused, fearing to take him 
to a great city, where the chances were that he 
would go straight to ruin. But the young man was 
determined to show his uncle that he could find, or 
make a place for himself without help from any 
one. Accordingly, much to that excellent gentle- 
man’s surprise, his nephew one day made his 
appearance in his store, not to ask for a place but 
just as a visitor. 

His uncle, Lemuel, a younger brother of his 
mother, lived in Boston, and at his house young 
Moody was made welcome. He at once began to look 
for a situation, but did not succeed very well. The 
odor and the air of the farm were upon him; the 
touch of the mountain breeze was still in his cheeks, 
and these distinguished him from the dwellers in 

47 


48 LIFE IN BOSTON. 


the city. His clothes were not of the fashionable 
cut of the day. In some places they were shiny; 
in others, seedy, and his trousers bagged at the knee. 
At this time he was so unfortunate as to inherit a big 
boil on his neck, which forcedhis head to rest on 
one side, and gave hima comical, if not a grotesque 
appearance, and of course this did not help his pros- 
pects for obtaining a situation. 

At the end of a week he was much disgusted, but 
not discouraged; he began to think that nobody in 
Boston appreciated him, and he did have a very fair 
idea of his own worth. He came to the conclusion 
that he must move on, and he picked upon New 
York as the place to which he thought it would be 
well to go. All his money was gone, and he knew 
that he must make the journey on foot, if hs went 
at all, as he had nothing which he could sell to raise 
more funds. His uncle Lemuel asked him if he had 
called upon his uncle Samuel for aid to a situation. 

““No,’’ said Dwight, “‘he knows that I am looking 
for a place, and he may help me or not just as he 
pleases.’’ 

His pride, however, was beginning to bend just a 
little, but it was by no means ready to break. He ~ 
was adrift in a world which seemed to care for him 
no more than the ocean waves care for a floating 
piece of cork wood. His uncle Lemuel thought it 
might be well to give the young man some advice, 
so he gave him a good ‘fatherly talk. He told him 
that his self-will was greatly in his way, and that 
modesty was sometimes as needful as courage, and 
suggested that his uncle Samuel would no doubt be 
glad to do something for him, if he should show 


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LIFE IN BOSTON. 51 


himself a little more willing to be governed by peo- 
ple who were older and wiser than himself. 

Acting upon this advice, he was kindly received 
by his uncle Samuel, who consented to give him a 
place as a salesman in his store upon the following 
conditions: 

That he was to board at some place to be selected 
by his uncle. 

That he was not to be out in the streets after 
night, or go to places of amusement, which his 
uncle did not approve. 

That he was regularly to attend the Mount Ver- 
non (Congregational) church and Sunday-school. 

His uncle was a successful business man. He, 
too, had come to Boston in his youth, and knew of 
the snares and temptations to which a young man 
was subjected, and he was satisfied that if young 
Dwight would adhere strictly to the code he had laid 
down for him, that he would succeed. He had for 
many years been a member of the Mount Vernon 
church, and he knew that the young man would be 
sure to find there good companions, a thing which 
he considered of vital importance. To the three 
conditions above enumerated, a general one was 
added, which was that Dwight was to be governed 
by the judgment of his uncle rather than his own; 
or, in other words, that he was to give due obedi- 
ence to his superiors. 

Young Moody was in such a state of mind, and 
was so thankful for the aid which his uncle had 
offered him, that he readily agreed to all of the con- 
ditions, and to his credit, it may be said that he 
kept them faithfully. A home was found for him in 
a Se family, who lived in humble style, but 


52 LIFE IN BOSTON. 


the moral atmosphere was such that it more than 
compensated for any lack of bodily comforts. A 
feeling natural to one in his condition, sprung up in 
the breast of young Moody, and that was that the 
people with whom he came in contact in his church 
and business life felt that they were just a little bit 
better than he. He saw that he had neglected his 
opportunities in the country school, and that his 
meagre education had not fitted him to shine in cul- 
tivated society. For a time he was unhappy, but he 
steadily held to his purpose of conquering a place 
for himself in the world, and he felt sure of ultimate 
success. 

He was a sharp, shrewd boy, a keen observer of 
man and things, even at that early age, and was 
possessed after a short time, with a judgment rare 
in a boy who had been raised under such environ- 
mehts. What he lacked in knowledge he made up 
in shrewd guessing, and within three months after 
he entered the store of his uncle, he was the best 
salesman in the house. His idea of business was a 
struggle with mankind, out of which the hardest 
heads and the sharpest wits were sure to come with 
the largest influence and the longer purse. His 
uncles were quiet men and conservative. Dwight 
was opposed to silence and conservatism. Their 
ideas were not his ideas, although their aim may 
have been the same. They were slow and method- 
ical; he was brusque, impulsive and aggressive. 
He had a high sense of what he thought was right, 
and was quick to resent what he deemed any attack 
upon his honor. These little tempests of passion 
soon passed away, however. It may be imagined 
that this peculiar characteristic of the young man 


LIFE IN BOSTON. 53 


sometimes created consternation in the conservative 
old business house, and it required splendid diplo- 
matic ability on the part of the superiors to keep 
peace among the inferiors. 

The church which his uncle required him to attend 
was Congregational in its character, and was one of 
the most orthodox and excellent in all that section 
of the country. Its pastor, Dr. Kirk, was a man of 
magnificent physique, of great knowledge, of cap- 
tivating manners, and great oratorical powers. He 
was such a man as would naturally draw to him a 
character such as that of young Moody. No ordi- 
nary preacher would have been able to have done 
this. Young Dwight saw in this minister a man 
who was a success. 

Mr. Edward Kimball was the teacher of the Bible 
class, in which he was placed in the Sunday-school. 
His first visits to the class were by reason of his 
agreement with his uncle, but it was with evident 
weariness and impatience that he listened to the 
lessons and explanations. The teacher stated in 
speaking of the affair in after years that he did not 
seem to be able to get hold of the young man, and 
that he even felt that he was failing to interest him, 
but that one Sunday, the lesson happened to be 
about Moses, and that he noticed that the young 
boy listened with considerable attention, and was 
at last so interested as to actually ask a question, 
the first remark he had made. The teacher received 
the question with much favor, and enlarged upon it 
much to the youth’s satisfaction. The boy soon 
began to take an interest in his teacher, but his dis- 
like for the Sunday-school and the church seemed 
to be growing. It seemed to him that the people 


54 LIFE IN BOSTON. 


were so rich, so proud and so pious, that they lived 
in a different world from his. The youth of his age 
wore better clothes, and spent a great deal of money, 
and he felt that he could not imitate them. There- 
fore, he considered himself a victim of misfortune, 
and had a habit of revenging himself, as many peo- 
ple do under like circumstances, by denouncing his 
more fortunate fellow creatures for their pride. It 
was not long, howerer, before the spirit of God be- 
gan to make itself manifest in his soul. His heart 
gradually began to soften. He thought often of 
the lessons taught him by his mother, and he began 
again to pray the Lord to help him to be good. One 
day his Sunday-school teacher came to him in his 
place of business, and putting his hand kindly upon 
his shoulder, inquired if he would not give his heart 
to Christ. The question awakened him, and he be- 
gan to seek the Savior in earnest, and in alittle while 
he began to feel that he had been converted. Years 
afterward, he used to say: ‘‘I can feel the touch of 
that man’s hand on my shoulder yet.’’ He carried 
into his religion the same enthusiasm that he used 
in his business, and he soon began to speak in the 
meetings of the church, telling what God had done 
for his soul, and sometimes adding a piece of ex- 
hortion, which was not always flattering to the ele- 
gant believers around him, and which was many 
times received with disfavor. 

It is related that one good lady, a member of the 
congregation, one of those prim, stately old New 
England damsels, who doubtless traced her ancestry 
back to the Mayflower pilgrims, called upon his 
uncle Samuel, and requested that he advise the 
young man to remain silent until he should become 


LIFE IN BOSTON. 55 


more able to edify the meetings. His uncle replied 
that he was glad his nephew had the courage to 
profess his faith in such presence, and declined to 
put anything in his way. 

In the course of time, he made application to be 
received into the Mount Vernon church, and went 
before the deacons to be examined as to his faith 
and doctrine. His early training in religious mat- 
ters had been in a general way. He had not been 
taught the catechism of any creed. His mother was 
a believer in the Bible, and explained it according 
to her light without reference to any particular sect. 
Thus it was that when he came to pass the strict 
doctrinal examination, he found himself illy quali- 
fied. There was nothing lacking in his faith, but 
his doctrine was lamentably weak. Orthodox the- 
ology had made little impression upon him. He 
was completely at sea on the questions propounded 
to him by the deacons, but he was familiar with his 
duty to Christ, to the church and the world, and he 
was willing and anxious to doit. The deacons did 
not take kindly to this kind of theology. In those 
days, doctrine was one of the great things neces- 
sary to a man’s salvation, and he who had not doc- 
trinal points at the end of his tongue, was not, in 
their judgment, considered a fit candidate for full 
church membership. They wanted the young man 
to succeed, they wanted him to become a member of 
- their church, but they could not see their way clear 
to accepting him at that time. They, therefore, 
proposed to put him on probation. This the young 
man accepted, and continued his heavenward course, 
meanwhile imbibing a number of the doctrinal 
points. After a time, he made a second applica- 


56 LIFE IN BOSTON. 


tion, and at the May communion, in the year 1855, 
he was received into the church. Some years 
afterward, Dr. Kirk, the pastor, was in Chicago, 
and heard the young man preach, stayed at his 
house, preached in his pulpit, and conversed with 
the people about him, and when he returned East, 
he called upon Moody’s uncle Samuel, and said to 
him: 

‘“We ought to be ashamed of ourselves. There is 
that young Moody, whom we thought did not know 
enough to be in our church and Sunday-school, ex- 
ercising a greater influence for Christ than any other 
man in the great Northwest.’”’ 

Mr. Moody never forgot the kind help of his 
teacher, Mr. Kimball. He claimed it as one of the 
sweetest experiences of his life when he had become 
a successful evangelist. Many years after, when 
Mr. Moody was holding some meetings in Boston, a 
young man came to him after the service and intro- 
duced himself as the son of Mr. Kimball. Mr. 
Moody was, of course, delighted to see him, and at 
once inquired if he wasa Christian. The young 
man answered that he was not. 

‘*How old are you?’’ asked Mr. Moody. 

‘*Seventeen,’’ replied the young man. 

‘Just my age,’’ said Mr. Moody, ‘‘when your 
father led me to the Savior, and that was just sev- 
enteen years ago this very day. Now, I want to 
pay him by leading his son to Christ.’’ 

_ The young man was deeply impressed. They 
went into a pew together. Mr. Moody prayed with 
him, and received his promise to give his heart to 
Christ. Soon afterward, he received a letter from 


“LIFE IN BOSTON. 57 


his old teacher, in which he said that his son had 
found peace in believing. 

Mr Moody carried his business push into the 
church, and Dr. Kirk was many times obliged to 
put an extinguisher on the young man, who always 
wanted to talk. He reminded one of a steam-engine 
in his enthusiasm. His conversion seemed to force 
him to want to do something more than was being 
done in the church. He could not understand that 
a man could be a conservative Christian. He 
thought that he must always be fighting sin in 
whatever guise he found it. He believed that the 
old bones needed rattling up. He wanted to set the 
church members to working, but they did not take 
kindly to innovations. He began to think that a 
change of scene was what he needed. He had heard 
and read much of the West, and he believed that 
there he would have better opportunities for fulfill- 
ing his business aspirations, and a freer range for 
his religious convictions. So, in 1856, in the month 
of September, he left Boston, and a few days later 
arrived in Chicago. 


CHAPTER IV. 


BEGINNING OF HIS CAREER. 


When Mr. Moody arrived in Chicago, he carried 
letters of introduction to a number of merchants in 
the boot and shoe line, this being the only class of 
business with which he was familiar, he had little 
trouble in securing a situation with a Mr. Wiswall. 
He conducted a flourishing store on Lake Street. 
The young Yankee soon made his influence felt, 
there was a hustle about him which pleased his 
employer and caused his fellow clerks to look on in 
astonishment. He earned every cent of salary that 
was paid him and it was raised more than once in 
afew years in which he remained in the business. ~ 
He introduced new ideas constantly. In those days 
it was the habit of clerks to sit around and read the 
papers when no customers were within, this young 
Moody never did. If no buyers appeared at the 
store he went out after them, he beat about the 
hotels, depots and other places where he was likely 
to fall in with merchants from the country. When 
he found them he had a faculty of persuading them 
that the goods which he sold were far superior in 
every respect to the goods sold by other people in 
the same line of business, and that the methods and 
business integrity of his firm was the superior of 
all. It is the general impression of all who knew 
his early prospects, that if he had devoted his 

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BEGINNING OF HIS CAREER. 61 


life to business he would have become one of 
the recognized commercial men of the United 
States, and perhaps one of its wealthiest merchants. 
His enterprise, organizing powers and financial 
ability were recognized and remarked upon at all 
times. His friends tried in every way to persuade 
him to stick to a mercantile career, but he was not 
to be turned from his decision to devote his life to 
the saving of souls. No better evidence of Mr. 
Moody’s business ability can be cited than the suc- 
cessful operation of the splendid settlement of 
schools at Northfield, and of the Bible Institute and 
its attendant features here in Chicago. 

One of the first acts of Mr. Moody, when he 
gational Church of Chicago, and to hire therein not 
one but four pews, he had determined that any 
money which he received for his services, and which 
was not necessary to the support of his mother and 
her family in Northfield, and not necessary for the 
defraying of slight expenses necessary for his own 
support, should be applied to the spreading of the 
gospel, he believed that as he gave so would he 
prosper, that he could do more good for himself and 
for others by giving a quarter instead of a tenth of 
his income to Christ, so that/one of the things that 
he did with his surplus income was to expend it in 
this unique manner of hiring four pews in a church. 
Having secured the pews, the next thing was to fill 
them, this, however, was not a difficult task. He 
went into the highways and by-ways and brought in 
the scum of the earth. Some of the good aristo- 
cratic church members did not fancy this sort of 
evangelism, but the minister was a godly man and 


62 BEGINNING OF HIS CAREER. 


believed that this young parishoner was on the right 
track. This work, however, was too slow for this 
Yankee enthusiast, he wanted to fill the church, but 
as that was not to be thought of, he must find some 
other method of satisfying his ambition for work. 

He applied for the position of the teacher of one 
of the Mission Sunday-schools, and was informed 
that the school was well supplied. They said, how- 
ever, if he could bring in his own class, they would 
certainly not object to his teaching them and that 
he would be given the best of support. / They inti- 
mated to him that it was not teachers-that they 
wanted, but scholars, that it was not much trouble 
to find teachers, the trouble was to find some one to 
teach. 

On the next Sunday the new candidate for teach- 
er’s honors, appeared with a procession of eighteen 
as ragged, rowdy, barefooted lot of young ‘‘hood- 
lums’’ as ever crossed the threshold, of a place of 
worship. He had found his vocation, he was in his 
element and he knew it at once. This must be his 
life work. He became the church recruiting officer 
in all the missions and Sunday-schools in the town. 
He did not neglect his business, that went on the 
same as before, his energy seemed almost tireless, 
he worked hard all day in his business relations and, 
spent the evenings and Sunday working for souls. | 

The commerce of Chicago in those days was 
largely transported by ships, and the busy docks 
was consequently a meeting place for the toughest 
characters, and he was to be seen in the lowest parts 
of a great city among them, spreading tracts, and 
offering consolation, many times to be rebuffed, 
entreating men to give up their vicious practices 


BEGINNING OF HIS CAREER. 63 


and turn their attention in future to the great truths 
taught in the Scriptures. 5 

It was not long before Mr. Moody established a 
mission Sunday-school of hisown. He saw that a 
large territory on the north side of the river was not 
looked after by Christian people, so he rented a 
deserted saloon, the only available room to be had at 
that time, which stood near the North Side Market. 
The location was admirable for his purpose. It was 
surrounded by fully 200 saloons and gambling dens, 
and the streets, alleys and tenements swarmed with 
men, womenandchildren. His previous scout work 
had made him acquainted with the habits of these 
people and he did not fear but that he could soon 
make his school a success. 

A gentleman who visited this school in its first 
days described it as being bare of chairs and tables, 
most of the scholars being obliged to stand up along 
the wall. Mr. Moody had anold box for a seat, and 
his plan was to group the children around him, with 
perhaps one on his knee, and read to them chapters 
from the Bible any cxplain it according to his light. 
It was about this time when he began to note his 
own deficiency in education, and this caused him to 
call upon people who were well equipped for Sunday- 
school work to aid him. 

One of Mr. Moody’s best qualifications for this 
work was his intense love for children; he never 
seemed happier than when in the midst of a jolly 
group of youngsters with whom he could romp and 
play to his heart’s content. 

Mr. Frank Keefer, of Hammond, Ind., who was an 
attendant at the North Side Moody school, relates 
that at one time Mr. Moody gave a picnic to his 


64 BEGINNING OF HIS CAREER. 


scholars out on the Des Plaines river; the day was 
an ideal one in the country, and everything was in 
the full beauty of life, while the sun beamed bright 
and warm. He remembers that Mr. Moody was 
attired in along linen duster and presented anything 
but a distinguished appearance. During the day 
Mr. Moody gave his boys what he called a treat. 
He had secured several large sacks of apples and he 
went through the crowd pouring them out to see 
the boys scramble after them. He highly enjoyed 
the performance, but when he had finished he did 
not have much left worth speaking of in the way of 
clothes. 

One of Mr. Moody’s plans was to approach his 
intended scholars with candies, apples and toys, thus 
gain their confidence, and finally get them into the 
school. When he got them there once he had no 
fear but that they would return. Several men are 
now living who were members of that school, and 
they state that although at the time they had no 
deep religious convictions yet there was something 
about Mr. Moody and his methods that drew them to 
him and made the Sunday-school a desirable place 
to go, although the outside attractions were certainly 
very inducing in those days. 

Thus early Mr. Moody realized the value of music, 
and believed it to be one of the strong points 
which would hold his Mission school together. He 
secured the services of Mr. Trudeau, a musical 
friend, and installed him as chorister. It was not 
long before the school began to grow to such propor- 
tlons that Mr. Moody saw he must make other 
arrangements to accommodate the crowd. He, 
therefore, obtained permission of Mayor Haines to 


BEGINNING OF HIS CAREER. 65 


use the hall over the old North Market. This hall 
had generally been used on Saturday nights for a 
dance, and it took most of the forenoon on Sunday 
to sweep out the debris, such as sawdust, tobacco 
and beer stain. There were no furnishings in this 
room, but Mr. Moody took it upon himself to do the 
financial work and soon succeeded. Among those 
whom he called on was Mr. J. V. Farwell, the mil- 
lionaire merchant prince of Chicago. Mr. Farwell 
succumbed to the blandishments of Mr. Moody and 
subscribed money enough to furnish the hall. After 
Mr. Moody received his subscription he asked Mr. 
Farwell what he was doing in the way of personal 
work for Christ. Mr. Farwell told him, and Mr. 
Moody finding that all his time was not occupied, 
suggested that he visit his Sunday-school on the 
next Sunday. Mr. Farwell did so and was surprised 
on his arrival there to learn that Mr. Moody had 
nominated him as Superintendent. He hesitated 
somewhat about accepting the office, but Mr. Moody 
insisted, however, that he should try it, and he did, 
and thus began a friendship which lasted throughout 
Mr. Moody’s life. The school grew from seventy- 
five scholars to 200 in three months; there were 350 
scholars in six months, and within a year the aver- 
age attendance was 650. It was estimated that 
fully 2,000 children passed through the school a year. 

‘Mr. Moody not only did scout work for his Sunday- 
school, but in his travels through the lowly districts 
of Chicago he found many cases of want and his 
energies were largely turned in the direction of 
relieving the distress of such people as came under 
his observation. In order to do this he had to call 
upon his friends; this circle he extended wider and 


66 BEGINNING OF HIS CAREER. 


wider each year until he knew every prominent 
business man in Chicago, and it has been stated that 
there was not a single one of them but had contrib- 
uted more or less to Mr. Moody’s plans. 

During these labors at the North Market Street 
Mission he attended to his duties of a traveling sales- 
man. This made his work much harder, because he 
would frequently be miles from Chicago toward the 
end of the week, but he had made an arrangement 
with hisemployers that he was to spend his Sundays 
at home and he never allowed anything to interfere 
with this. It is not to be supposed that he had 
clear sailing in his Sunday-school work. There was 
a strong Catholic element living on the North Side 
at that time and among the boys were numbered sev- 
eral who were certainly anything but saints. These 
boys broke windows constantly in the old Market 
Hall, and did other things which annoyed Mr. 
Moody very greatly. He knew it would be of little 
use to expostulate with the boys and less use to expos- 
tulate with their parents, and he determined to go 
to the fountain head and see what could be done. 
He, therefore, called upon the Catholic Bishop of 
Chicago and laid the matter before him. The Bishop 
was surprised, of course, but Mr. Moody won him 
over and the Bishop issued an order which prevented 
any further disturbances. 

After his school had been fully established, he de- 
termined to give all his service to Christian work, and 
the manner in which this was brought about is told 
in another place in this work. He made it a prac- 
tice to speak to one unconverted man each day, and 
he has related many instances of his work in this 
manner. 


BEGINNING OF HIS CAREER. 67 


On the 28thof August, 1862, he entered into mar- 
riage with Miss Emma C. Revell, who still survives 
him. She is asister of Fleming H. Revell, the well 
known Chicago publisher. Two children were born 
of this union while they resided in Chicago and one 
child after they removed to Northfield, all of whom 
survive. 

With his work during the war, on the Christian — 
Commission, he found time, in 1863, to erect a large 
building in Illinois Street, at a cost of $20,000, and 
removed his mission and church from the North 
Market Hall to that place when it was completed. 
He did not give up his work with the Y. M. C. A. 
by any means. He determined that the Association 
should have a permanent hall and this he secured 
for them. It was known as ‘‘Farwell Hall,’’ and 
was dedicated on September 29, 1867. 


CHAPTER V. 


HIS Y. M. C. A. WORK. 


Mr. Moody was ae of the first members of the 
Y. ME C. A...of Chicago, in 1858, when that organ- 
ization opened its room at 205 Randolph street. He 
continued his work, and, in 1864, was made a mem- 
ber of a special committee for the procuring of 
ground and the erection of a permanent building. 
As a result of this work, the first building of the 
Association was dedicated at 148 Madison street, in 
1867. He was president of the Association from 
1865 to 1869. One of the principal reasons ascribed 
for the success of the Y. M. C. A. was the daily 
prayer-meetings and the religious efforts growing 
out of it. Mr. Moody was the leading spirit, and 
gathered round him a band of men who were win- 
ners of souls. The very atmosphere of the rooms 
of the Association was one of prayer and praise. 
Although the appointments were very modest and 
plain, the spirit of those who met in those daily ser- 
vices was one of remarkable eonsecration. 

The good effected by the Y. M. C. A. in connec- 
tion with the United States Christian commission 
during the civil war’was altogether incalculable, 
many of whom were among the first who responded 
to the call for 75,000 men, and from that time to the 
capture of Richmond the labor of societies were un- 

68 


HIS Y. M. C. A. WORK. 69 


remitting to aid and comfort soldiers in camp and 
on the battle-field. 

A large chapel was erected in Chicago where there 
was preaching and prayer-meetings every day. The 
hospitals were visited by regular agents who sup- 
plied all the needs of the soldiers during sickness 
and convalescence. “Dwight L. Moody was the first 
regular army agent of the societies. 

Camp Douglas, in Chicago, was selected for a mil- 
itary prison by the United States authorities, and 
many men who had fought in the Confederate army 
were brought there for safety. Mr. Moody and his 
co-workers saw in this camp, which was tenanted 
alike by Union and Confederate forces, a need of 
spiritual instruction. He, therefore, put forth his 
“efforts to do all the good he could in the camp, and 
held meetings|there as often as his affairs and the 
exigencies of the camp would permit. 

From Camp Douglas he went to other camps of 
the army, and for years his familiar face and pleas- 
ant voice were seen and heard in many places where 
blood ran in streams. 

/ At the close of the war, there was organized what 
‘was known as the American Christian Commission, | 
which held conventions in many cities of the country,/ 
among the most notable of which were the ones held 
in Boston, Minneapolis, and Des Moines, Iowa, in 
1866; Leavenworth, Kansas; Minneapolis, Pitts- 

burg, and Grinnell, Iowa, in 1867; St. Louis, Phil- 

adelphia, Peoria, Detroit, Terre Haute, Columbus, 

and terminating with the great national convention 
held in Marble Church, New York, in 1868./ At 
each of these conventions Mr. Moody presided, and 
was the moving spirit of the meetings. , His work 


70 HIS Y. M. C. A. WORK. 


in the Christian Commission brought him more than 
local fame/but his work in these conventions made 
him known to people all over the United Statesyand 
the culmination was in the New York meeting when 
he answered the questions and expounded his views 
on the Bible against Dr. John Hall and Rev. Henry 
Ward Beecher. In the judgment of the contempo- 
rary critics, he came out with the fullest of honors. 

At the close of the work of the Commission, he 
came back to Chicago, occasionally making visits 
here, there and elsewhere, for the purpose of hold- 
ing ne ./ He began to be much Sought after and 
he thought that perhaps it would be best to give up 
his local work in Chicago and vicinity, and traverse 
more ground. 

In a history of the First Congregational Church 
of Chicago for the quarter-century ending in 1876, 
appeared the following: ‘‘In closing the records of 
this portion of our history a brief word ought to be 
spoken respecting the peculiarly close relation sus- 
tained by this church to the evangelistic work of our 
honored brother, Dwight L. Moody, Major Ta 
Whittle, and P. P. Bliss. It isa matter of pardon- 
able pride that when Brother Moody was canvassing 
the question of duty as to his future work, when 
some ridiculed his illiterateness, were offended at 
his plain, blunt way of putting the gospel truth; 
when some pulpits were shut against him, and some 
Christian people were disposed to think him a clown, 
not to say a fool, this church had, as a whole, only 
sympathy, this pulpit only a welcome and a God- 
speed. And I know that this hearty fellowship and 
regard were most grateful and inspiriting to him. 

‘‘The first Bible-reading he gave in this city, or 


HIS Y. M. C. A. WORK. 71 


gave anywhere, as covering the new method of evan- 
gelistic labor which was shaping itself before his 
mind, he gave in the lecture-room of this church, 
and the work of that series of twelve readings 
greatly encouraged this dear brother to continue in 
his chosen work. Church and pastor were one in 
this. You never found fault with me for welcoming 
him so heartily to this pulpit. You never sneered 
at his broken, unpolished utterances, his faulty 
grammar. You agreed with me, that taught in the 
schools or taught only in the closet, ordained by the 
laying on of men’s hands, or ordained only by the 
baptism of the Holy Ghost, whosoever he might be, 
that evinces the seal of God’s approval on his en- 
deavor to lead men to Christ, he should have our 
heartiest fellowship, our sincerest prayers. 

“Brother Whittle is our rightful ambassador, for 
he was converted under the ministry of this pulpit. 
Brother Bliss, whom Brother Moody feels to be as 
truly raised up of God in his service of gospel song, 
as was Charles Wesley, is still one of our household, 
and thank God for this fellowship. They all pray 
earnestly for us as we do for them; and may God 
grant to endue both them and us with a double por- 
tion of His Spirit, and in the future exalt through 
all our labors, as never before, the gospel of salva- 
tion through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.”’ 

In speaking of Moody’s Y. M. C. A. work, Rev. 
F. G. Ensign, superintendent of the American 
Sunday-school Union, says: ‘‘The services of 
Dwight L. Moody in the early days of the Young 
Men’s Christian Association were of inestimable 
value, and his influence has remained through all 
these later years as a benediction. From 1861 to 1870 


72 HIS Y. M. C. A. WORK. 


no man was so constant and persistent in the work as 
was Mr. Moody. He gave toit the first labors of his 
early days, and the ripe thoughts of his mature 
years. As a well-known business man, in whose 
store Mr. Moody was once employed, said: ‘Mr. 
Moody would make quite a good clerk if he had not 
so many other things on his hands.’ Those other 
things were the eternal interests of his fellow men, 
and such a spirit as his could not be long confined 
even by the bounds that hold most men to the 
appointed desks by which they earn their daily 
bread. With an enthusiasm which could not be 
dampened, and an energy which never abated, Mr. 
Moody pursued his arrow-straight course. 

‘‘What he has done for communities and nations 
during these latter years, he did for the Association 
during his early days. It would be impossible to 
estimate his usefulness to the Association, or to cat- 
alogue the details of his successful work. The asso- 
ciation claims him as its greatest single champion 
and honors him for the work that he did while here 
not léss than for the work for the world’s evangel- 
ization, which he has since pursued with great suc- 
cess. It rejoices that one whose training was in part 
obtained in its service should be so manifestly called 
of God to the great work in which he has since 
engaged.” 


CHAPTER VI. 


FIRST MEETING WITH BLISS. 


Mr. P. P. Bliss, who is known as the sweet singer 
and great song-writer, tells of his first meeting with 
Mr. Moody, in 1869. Mr. Moody at that time was 
holding gospel services in Woods’ Museum, Chi- 
cago, which stood near the corner of Clark and Ran- 
dolph Streets. Previous to his holding services in 
the theater, he was accustomed to speaking in the 
open air from the steps of the court house. Mr. 
Bliss said that one Sunday evening, accompanied by 
his wife, they went out for a walk, and passing up 
Clark Street, they came to the open air meeting. 
“T was at once attracted by the earnestness of the 
speaker, who was Mr. Moody, and waiting until he 
closed with an earnest appeal for all to follow him 
to the theater, we decided we would go, and fell in 
with the crowd. I spent the evening in his meeting 
there. That night Mr. Moody was without his usual 
leader for the singing, and the music was rather 
weak. From the audience I helped what I could on 
the hymns, and attracted Moody’s attention. At 
the close of the meeting, he was at the door shaking 
hands with all who passed out, and as I came to him 
he had my name and history in about two minutes, 
and a promise that when I was in Chicago Sunday 
evenings, I would come and help in the singing at 
the theater meetings. This was the commencement 

73 


74 LIFE OF P. P. BLISS. 


of our acquaintance. I sang at the theater meet- 
ings often after that, and making longer stops in 
Chicago in connection with writing music, I was 
often at the noon meeting, and was frequently made 
use of by Mr. Moody in his various gatherings.’’ 

Mr. Bliss was engaged in holding revival services 
in different cities in connection with Major Whittle 
for several years and was very successful. His 
music is still used in Sunday-schools. 

Phillip Paul Bliss was born in Clearfield County, 
Pa., July 9, 1838, in the usual log house occupied 
by the English settlers of the mountain and forest 
region of northern Pennsylvania. In February, 
1844, the family moved to Kinsman, Trumbull 
County, Ohio, where they resided three years. In 
1847, the family returned to Pennsylvania, residing 
in Esterville, Crawford County, and, in November, 
1848, they removed to Tioga County. Mr. Bliss was 
one of sixteen children, all but two of whom died in 
infancy. When about ten years of age, he had his 
first piano, and he thought it was the sweetest music 
that had ever been produced. He worked on a farm 
in his early days, that is, from the time he was 
eleven until he was sixteen years of age. A portion 
of this time, however, he was enabled to obtain a 
little schooling. He was converted by a Baptist 
minister in 1850, and was immersed in a creek near 
his own home by a minister of the Christian church, 
who was holding meetings in that neighborhood. 

In 1855, he spent the winter in a select school at 
East Troy, Bradford County, Pa. In 1856, he 
worked on a farm in the summer, and taught school 

-in the winter at Hartsville, Allegheny County, N. 
Y. The following winter he passed at Towanda, 


LIFE OF P. P. BLISS. %5 


Pa., and at Towner Hill. Here he met for the first 
time J. G. Towner, who was afterward associated 
with him in concerting. The same winter he at- 
tended the musical convention at Rome, Pa. This 
did much to strengthen his growing passion for 
music. In 1858, he was at Almond, N. Y., and in 
the winter of that year he taught in the Rome 
Academy, at Rome, Pa. He became acquainted 
with O. F. Young, whose family were singers. He 
fell in love with the eldest daughter, Lucy, and, on 
June 1, 1859, they were married at the little town of 
Wysocks; the year after his marriage he worked on ' 
the farm for his father-in-law, and received for his 
support $13 a month, the amount usually paid to 
farm hands. In the winter he commenced teaching 
music at Bradford County for $2 an evening and 
board. His first musical composition was written in 
1864, and published in 1865 by Root & Cady. It 
was called ‘‘Lora Vale.’’ From 1864 to 1876, for 
twelve years, his pen was usually giving expression 
to songs that came thronging through his mind. 
He was twenty-six years old when he wrote his first 
song, and thirty-eight when he wrote his last. 

His first meeting with Mr. Geo. F. Root, of Chi- 
cago, was in 1863 or 1864. When he went to Illinois 
to hold musical conventions and give concerts, he 
connected himself with the musical publishing firm 
at that time, and took editorial charge of the ‘‘Musi- 
cal Visitor.’’ Mr. Bliss continued to hold revival 
meetings first with the Rev. D. W. Whittle, and 
then with Mr. Moody. Among his famous songs 
was ‘‘Hold the Fort, for I Am Coming,’’ which was 
taken from the message sent by General Sherman 
to the command which was holding Kenesaw moun- 


%6 LIFE OF P. P. BLISS. 


tain during the civil war. This was writtenin 1870. 
In September, 1876, he visited Mr. Moody at North- 
field, and spent a week with him there. He accom- 
panied him during that visit to Greenfield, Brattle- 
boro, Keene, and adjacent towns, and sang at the 
meetings Mr. Moody conducted. In October of that 
same year, he was present at the Moody and Sankey 
opening service in Chicago. He did not participate 
in any of the Chicago meetings in a public way, but 
for three weeks was a constant attendant. On Octo- 
ber 21st he went to Kalamazoo, his wife accompany- 
inghim. He sang atthe Young Ladies’ Seminary at 
the Baptist College. From the 11th to the 21st of 
November, 1876, he was at Jackson, Mich., holding 
meetings. On the 25th of November he went to 
Peoria, and held a meeting. On the 14th of De- 
cember the meeting was closed, and Mr. Bliss went 
to Chicago. He left on that same evening for To- 
wanda, Pa., where he spent Sunday with his mother, 
and sister, Mrs. Willson. It was his intention to 
return to Chicago on December 31st, when he and Mr. 
Whittle were to take up the work in that city. He 
attended nearly every meeting in the little town 
where he was visiting, his last one being on Wed- 
nesday evening, December 27th. He was full of 
the holy spirit, and sang with more than usual 
power, among the songs being ‘‘In the Christian 
Home in Glory,’’ ‘‘Hold Fast Till I Come,’’ “‘Fa- 
ther, I Am Tired,’’ and ‘‘Eternity.’’ He prefaced 
his remarks on the song, ‘“‘Hold Fast Till I Come,” 
by saying that it was one of the first occasions of its 
being sung, and it might be the last song he should 
ever sing to them. This seemed afterward in the 
light of a premonition of his approaching end. 


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LIFE OF P. P. BLISS. 79 


Thursday morning, December 28th, he took his lit- 
tle boys into a room by themselves, and prayed with 
them, and bade good-bye to all. His tickets read 
to Chicago by the way of Buffalo, on the Lake Shore 
road. He took the afternoon’ train at Waverley, 
and expected to be in Buffalo that night, but the 
engine of the train on which he was going was de- 
tained three hours. Upon arriving at Hornellsville 
late in the evening, they decided to wait over and 
have a night’s rest. Mr. and Mrs. Bliss left there 
Friday morning, December zgth, taking the train 
which connected at Buffalo with the Chicago train, 
wrecked at Ashtabula, Ohio. There were eleven 
cars on the train, consisting of two engines, three 
baggage, one smoker, two coaches, three sleepers, 
one parlor car—probably 2500n the train. A blind- 
ing snow storm was raging when the train pulled 
out of Buffalo an hour late. Just before reaching 
the bridge at Ashtabula, the snow was very heavy, 
and the prospect was that the train would be snowed 
in. There were two passenger cars in front of the 
smoker, which did not come in the regular way, and 
next behind the smoker came the parlor car in which 
were Mr. Bliss and his wife. When the train fell, 
Mr. Bliss succeeded in crawling through a window, 
supposing he could pull his wife through with him, 
but she was jammed fast, and all efforts proved un- 
available. She was caught in the iron work of the 
seats, and finding he could not save her, he staid 
with her in an attempt to put out the fire and rescue 
her, and perished with her. 

Some of his best known pieces were: ‘‘Hold the 
Fort,’’ “Pull for the Shore,” ‘‘Jesus Loves Even 
Me,”’ ps Are Going Home To-morrow,”’’ ‘‘More 


80 LIFE OF P. P. BLISS. 


to Follow,’’ ‘‘The Light of the World Is Jesus,’’ 
““Let the Lower Lights Be Burning,’’ ‘‘Almost 
Persuaded,’’ ‘‘What Shall the Harvest Be?’’ ‘‘Hal- 
lelujah, It Is Done.”’ 


CHAPTER «Vil; 


SERMONS ON P. P. BLISS. 


One of Mr. Moody’s most touching sermons was 
that preached at the Chicago Tabernacle, Sunday, 
Dec. 31, 1876, in memory of P. P. Bliss, who, with 
his family, perished in the Ashtabula disaster a few 
days previous. Mr. Moody’s subject was ‘‘The 
Return of Our Lord.’’ He stood in his place, and 
with manifest trouble to keep back the sobs and 
tears, he repeated those words of David, ‘‘Know ye 
not that there is a prince and a great man fallen in 
Israel.’’ Then, almost unable to speak for weeping, 
he said: ‘‘Let us lift up our hearts to God in silent 
prayer.’’ A long period of silence followed, broken 
by the voice of a member of the congregation, who 
gave thanks to God for eternal life. The congrega- 
tion then joined in singing ‘‘In the Christian’s 
Home in Glory there remains a land of rest,’’ after 
which Mr. Moody arose and said: 

“T was to take up the subject of our Lord’s 
return, but I cannot control my feelings so as to 
speak as I had intended. I will take up that sub- 
ject at another time. When I heard last night that 
Mr. Bliss and his whole family had perished, at first 
I could not believe it, but a dispatch from a friend 
who was on the train took away all hope and left me 
face to face with death. For the past three months 

81 


82 SERMONS ON P. P. BLISS. 


I have seemed to stand between the living and 
dead, and now I am to stand in the place of the 
dead. Mr. Whittle and Mr. Bliss were announced 
to held the four-o'clock meeting in the Tabernacle 
to-day, and now Mr. Farwell and Mr. Jacobs and 
Mr. Whittle, with other friends, have gone to see if 
they can find his remains to take them away for 
burial. I have been looking over his hymns to see 
if I could find one appropriate for the occasion, but 
I find that they are all like himself, full of hope and 
cheer. In all the years I have known and worked 
with him, I have never once seen him cast down, 
but here is a hymn of his I thought we might sing. 

‘‘Once after that wreck of the steamer at Cleve- 
land, I was speaking of the circumstance that the 
lower lights were out, and the next time we met 
he sang this hymn forme. It is the 65th in our 
collection. 

‘Let us sing it now. It begins ‘Brightly beams our 
Father’s mercy,’ but still more brightly beams the 
light along the shore to which he has passed. It 
was in the midst of the terrible storm he passed 
away, but the lights which he kindled are burning 
allalong the shore. He has died young, only about 
thirty-eight years old, but his hymns are sung 
around the world. Only a little while ago we re- 
ceived a copy of these hymns translated into the 
Chinese language. 

‘‘In spite of the mourning it issweet to think that 
this whole family passed away together, father, 
- mother, Paul, only four years old, and little George, 
only two years old, all gone home safe together. 
There comes a voice to us saying ‘Be still and 
know that I am God,’ but we know that our Father 


SERMONS ON P. P. BLISS. 83 


doeth all things well. My heart goes out for his 
mother. He was an only son and his mother was a 
widow. Let us just put up a prayer for his mother. 
And there was dear Mrs. Bliss who was not an inch 
behind her husband. She taught him how to pray 
and encouraged him with his music. I have often 
heard him say, ‘All I am I owe to that dear wife.’ 

‘“‘Now about that charge of his singing for money. 
The royalty on this little book has amounted to 
about sixty thousand dollars, which has been devoted 
to charitable purposes. I once asked Mr. Bliss to 
take $5,000 for himself, telling him I thought he 
needed it, but he would not take one farthing. Chi- 
cagoneverhadatruer man. Hewill be appreciated 
hundreds of years hence, like Charles Wesley and 
Doctor Watts. He was raised up to sing in the 
Church of God. God be praised for such a woman; 
God be praised for such a man.”’ 

On this occasion the only collectiom ever taken in 
the Tabernacle was at the suggestion of Mr. Moody 
for the erection of a monument to Mr. Bliss, and he 
requested that as so many would want to contribute, 
. that the largest contribution should not exceed 
$1.00. 

That same morning Mr. Moody preached a sermon 
at the Chicago Avenue Church, and referred to the 
work of the church, which was built in the hope 
that Messrs. Moody and Sankey would return and 
labor in Chicago through its means. Mr. Moody 
said: 

“Tt seems as if God is calling us to other fields, 
and I cannot help believing that if our Christian 
frie ds will just come together and pray earnestly 
to God, that the work will go on just as well without 


84 SERMONS ON P. P. BLISS. 


us as if we werehere. Some people get discouraged 
and think the work will not go on because we are 
not coming back. That is not the fact. Bear in 
mind that God is willing to labor through any one in 
the church who will consecrate himself to His cause. 
I cannot help believing that the best days of this 
church are in its future and not, as some think, in 
its past.’’ Thinking of workers, Mr. Moody's 
thoughts were drawn to Mr. Bliss, concerning whom 
he said: 

‘““Why he was so dear to all of us and why we 
loved him so much was because he was always cheer- 
ful. We never saw him discouraged or cast down; 
he was all the time singing about gladness. ‘I am 
so glad’ was the key note of all his songs. How 
‘pleasant it would be if every man and woman were 
full of the joy of the Lord because He is our 
strength. 

‘“This being the last day of the year, I have been 
looking forward to it as one of the most solemn days 
of the year, and I had prepared some thoughts to 
bring out on this occasion. But little did I think 
that it would be as solemn as it is. My thoughts 
have been drifted into another channel entirely. A 
text came into my mind whenI heard of the sudden 
death of Mr. Bliss and his family. He was coming 
to the city to fill an appointment here to-day. He 
was to have been with us this morning and it seems 
almost as if Iam standing in the place of the dead. 
It is always solemn to stand between the living and 
the dead, asa preacher does, but it is always more 
solemn to step into dead men’s shoes, as I feel I 
have done to-day. The text that occurred to me is 
in the 24th chapter of Matthew and the 43d verse, 


SERMONS ON P. P. BLISS. 85 


“Therefore be ye also ready.’ Death often takes us 
by surprise, but it did not find Mr. Bliss unprepared.. 
He and his wife had been ripening for heaven for 
years,and I have been thinking of that family before 
the throne this morning, singing the sweetest song 
they had ever sung. They should profit by this 
awful calamity. God was coming very near to this 
city. There was never before such an inquiring 
after God as there is now, and this last stroke of 
Providence ought to be a warning to every one 
to get in readiness to meet the Lord. It might be 
said that I am taking advantage of this catastrophe 
and preaching for effect. If people do not take this 
warning, Ido not know what will move their hearts. 
There are three things every man and woman ought 
to be ready for: life, death, and judgment. Life 
is uncertain; no man can tell at what hour nor in 
what manner death may visit him. Accidents like 
the one which occurred Friday are by no means un- 
common and might strike down any one of us. It 
therefore behooves every man to place his trust in 
Christ, so that he may be prepared to meet Him at 
any moment.”’ 

The Evangelist was greatly moved during the 
sermon and he pleaded earnestly and tearfully that 
the audience should heed this terrible wagning and 
accept Christ as their Savior. There were few dry 
eyes in the congregation when Mr. Moody resumed 
his seat. 

In the afternoon he preached again in the Taber- 
nacle from the text, ‘‘Therefore be ye also ready,”’ 
which he said had been ringing in his head all 
day. He called upon those who had heard him 
preach for three months to bear him witness that 


86 SERMONS ON P. P. BLISS. 


he had said nothing about death, confining him- 
self to life, but it might be that before long God 
might lay him away and send some one to take his 
place, and he could not forbear saying a word urg- 
ing on all the necessity of regeneration and prepara- 
tion. His voice was more subdued than usual, and 
in all he said and all the reading from the Scriptures 
it came tremulously and mingled with tears. He 
spoke painfully and with difficulty, the words some- 
times utterly unintelligible. 

‘* ‘Be ye therefore ready.’ Do not put it off. 
There are some who may say I am preaching for 
effect and making use of this good man’s death to 
frighten you.’’ Satan might even say that of him 
and say it truly. He was preaching for effect, and 
he hoped the effect would be to save the soul of 
every human being before him. He felt he must 
warn them, and would warn them of the wrath to 
come and the death pursuing. That death had sent 
many a warning during the year, and now an awful 
one had come. Many of them had looked down 
upon the dead faces and open graves of departed 
friends. Would they not heed those warnings? 
Would they not heed this last warning, which might 
be even nearer to themselves than any before. 
Death had taken them by surprise and had taken Mr. 
Bliss at the very time the speaker was writing out 
the notice of Mr. Bliss’s appearance to-day. He 
and his wife were snatched from life but they were 
ready. They might have suffered for a few minutes, 
it may be for an hour, but when they reached heaven 
there was none in all the celestial choir that sang 
sweeter or played better on his golden harp than 
P.?P. Bliss, 








Copyright, 1900, by Robt. O. Law. 
lee N28 AsIPiSis~ 


The “Singing Evangelist” and song-writer, whose music was usedin Mr. Moody’s 
meetings with wonderful success. 





SERMONS ON P. P. BLISS. 89 


‘« ‘Be ye therefore ready:’ no matter how or when 
aman may die, if he is only ready. Little did Mr. 
Bliss and his wife look for what was coming and it 
seems to me that no man or woman should ever go 
on a railroad train again until they have made their 
preparation to die. We may be called upon to die 
at any time the death of martyrs. I would rather 
die like Stephen than die like Moses. I would as 
lief die like P. P. Bliss as die like Stephen. Were 
they ready? Those who went on that train saw the 
the sun go down for the last time. Many in this 
house may have seen it go down for the last time as 
they came here. Are they ready? You may fall 
down and break something, or you might have dis- 
eases of the heart that would carry you off before 
morning. Are youready? There was no time to 
repent when they were rolling down that bank into 
that awful chaos and confusion. Some men were 
dead before they knew what had happened. God 
help the man who waited for a catastrophe before 
he repented. 

‘Look at that young girl. She had a deceptive 
cough. It was all right, the doctor said, or would 
be in the spring. He said this when he knew that 
spring grasses and flowers would wave over her 
grave. How much lying is done in sick chambers 
and by death-beds! 

“‘T would rather have been on that train and taken 
that awful leap and died like P. P. Bliss and his wife 
than have them go as they did, and every man 
should feel so who knows God and is ready to die. 

“‘O that you might profit by the calamity!”’ 


6 


CHAPTER VIII. 


FIRST MEETING WITH SANKEY. 


Mr. Moody’s meeting with Mr. Sankey took place 
in June, 1871, at Indianapolis. Both were delegates 
to the national convention of the Young Men’s 
Christian Association held there at that time. It 
was at an early prayer-meeting; the singing was 
dull and doleful until Mr. Sankey was called for- 
ward to act as leader. His sweet voice and fervent 
spirit at once brought the bold evangelist to his 
side. 

‘*Where do you live?’’ asked Mr. Moody, bluntly. 

‘“At Newcastle, Pa.,’’ was the answer. 

‘*Are you married?’’ 

Mesa 

‘*How many children have you?”’ 

 Onee 

““T want you with me to help me in my work in 
Chicago.”’ 

“*T cannot leave my business.’’ 

““You must. I have been looking for you for the 
last eight years; you must give up your business 
and come to Chicago with me.”’ 

“‘T will think of it; I will pray over it; I will talk 
it over with my wife.’’ 

With painful reluctance Mr. Sankey severed the 
associations so dear to him at his home, and in the 

90 


FIRST MEETING WITH°SANKEY. 91 


spirit of faith joined Mr. Moody in his vast labors as 
an evangelist in Chicago, and here they worked to- 
gether in harmony and were blessed with many 
souls as their hire. 

Then came the great Chicago fire, which not only 
devastated Mr. Moody’s mission and home, but 
almost the entire city. Mr. Moody was one of the first 
relief workers. He toiled day and night, forgetful 
of self, forgetful of everything except the safety of 
his family, and the rebuilding of acity in which 
had been wrought such ruin. One of his first 
thoughts was the rebuilding of his place of worship, 
and when once the thought was fixed in his mind, 
it did not take him long to execute it. Even before 
the ashes had cooled, and smoke was yet issuing 
from the embers, Mr. Moody began to clear away a 
place to erect his tabernacle. His enterprise 
brought him success, however, and his church was 
one of the first rebuilt in the city. He was one of 
the persons entrusted with the relief funds, and had 
a hand in distributing more than $7,000,000. 

Mr. Sankey now rejoined his family in Pennsylva- 
nia, and set about singing in conventions again 
until a telegram from Mr. Moody, three months 
later, said, ‘‘Come at once,’’ and he returned to work 
in the new tabernacle in Chicago. 

Ira David Sankey was born on the 28th of 
August, 1840. His birthplace was the village of Edin- 
burgh, Lawrence County, Pa. On the paternal side, 
he came from English stock, and on the maternal, 
Scotch-Irish. His parents were natives of Mercer 
County, and were members of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church. Out of their family of nine children, 
only three sons and one daughter grew up to ma- 


92 FIRST MEETING WITH SANKEY. 


turity. David, the father, was well off in worldly 
circumstances, and in such good repute among his 
neighbors that they repeatedly elected him a mem- 
ber of the state legislature. He was also a licensed 
exhorter in his own church. Thus the means and 
the character of this household were such as to in- 
sure ample advantages for culture in general knowl- 
edge and spiritual truth. 

Ira, from his childhood, was noted for his joyous 
spirit and trustful disposition. The sunshiny face 
that is so attractive in his public ministry, has been 
a distinguishing feature from early boyhood, and 
very early won him the praise of being ‘“‘the finest 
little fellow in the neighborhood.’’ His father 
states: ‘‘There was nothing very remarkable in his 
early or boyhood history. The gift of singing de- 
veloped in him at a very early age. I say gift, be- 
cause it was God-given; he never took lessons from 
anyone, but his taste for music was such that when 
a small boy he could make passable music on almost 
any kind of instrument.’’ An old Scotch farmer, 
named Frazer, early interested himself in the little 
lad; and of his good influence Mr. Sankey thus 
spoke, at a children’s meeting held in the town of 
Dundee, Scotland: ‘*The very first recollection I 
have of anything pertaining to religious life was in 
connection with him. I remember he took me by 
the hand, along with his own boys, to the Sabbath- 
school—that old place which I shall remember to my 
dying day. He was a plain man, and I can see him 
standing up and praying for the children. He had 
a great, warm heart, and the children all loved him. 
It was years after that when I was converted, but 


FIRST MEETING WITH SANKEY. 93 


my impressions were received when I was very 
young, from that man.”’ 

Thus reared in a genial, religious atmosphere, 
liked and respected by all who knew him and 
accepted as a leader by his boyish comrades, Ira 
lived on till past his fifteenth year before his soul 
was converted to Christ. His conviction as a sinner 
occurred while he attended a series of special serv- 
ices held in a little church three miles from his 
home, and of which Rev. H. H. Moore was then 
pastor. At first, he was as gay as his curious com- 
panions. But an earnest Christian met him each 
evening with a few soul-searching words; and after 
a week’s hard struggle, he came as a sinner to the 
Savior and found peace in acceptance. Soon after, 
when his father removed to Newcastle to assume 
the presidency of the bank, Ira became a member 
of the Methodist church, and also a pupil at the aead 
emy at Newcastle. 

This young Christian was richly endowed with a 
talent for singing spiritualsongs. His pure, beauti- 
ful voice gave a clear utterance to the emotions of 
his sympathetic, joyous nature, and was potent in 
carrying messages from his heart to the hearts of 
his hearers. It now became his delight to devote 
this precious gift to the service of his Lord, and it 
was his continual prayer that the Holy Spirit would 
bless the words sung to the conversion of those who 
flocked to the services to hear him. Before he © 
attained his majority he was appointed superintend- 
ent of the Sunday-school, which contained above 
three hundred scholars; and it was blessed with a 
continual revival. His singing of the gospel invita- 
tions in solos dates from this time. These sweet 


94 FIRST MEETING WITH SANKEY. 


hymns were sung in the very spirit of prayer, and 
the faith of the singer was rewared with repeated 
blessings. A class of seventy Christians was com- 
mitted to his charge, and this weighty responsibility 
made him a more earnest student of the Holy Bible. 
He encouraged his class to tell him of their condi- 
tion in Bible language, as texts abounded for every 
state of grace, and every description of religious 
feeling. The choir of the congregation also came 
under his leadership. Young as he was, he insisted 
on conduct befitting praise-singers in the House of 
God, and on a clear enunciation of each word sung. 

These congenial religious duties were suspended 
for a time by a call for defenders of the flag upon 
the fall of Fort Sumter. Mr. Sankey was among 
the first to volunteer for three months and he 
served out his term of enlistment. Even in the 
camp, he gathered about him a band of singers and 
was an earnest worker in the prayer meetings of the 
soldiers. Upon his return home, he became assist- 
ant to his father as collector of internal revenue and 
held that position with credit, until his voluntary 
resignation nearly ten years later. He was united 
in marriage on the 9th of September, 1863, to Miss 
Edwards, a helpful member of his choir and teacher 
in his school. 

He assisted in organizing a Y. M. C. A., at New- 
castle, and was elected president, and it was in this 
connection that he attended the Indianapolis conven- 
tion as a delegate. 


CEEAPTERETX. 


CHARACTER INDICATORS. 


Mr. Moody was an exceedingly heavy eater. He 
was not capricious, by any means, as to the quality 
of his food, although he appreciated good cooking 
as well as anyone who had traveled as much as he. 
Quantity was what he wanted, and it made no 
difference how heavy a meal he ate, it never seemed 
to bother him in the least. 

One of the things which contributed to his endur- 
ance was the fact that he never got nervous, although 
many times he appeared to do so. He could lie 
down after a heavy meal, or at the close of a very 
exhausting meeting, and sleep the sleep of a child. 
It did not seem to make any difference whether at 
home, on a railway train, in a boarding-house, or a 
hotel, he appeared to sleep as well in one e place as 
in the other. 


He was a bitter opponent of the church fair, and ° 


other forms of amusement and entertainment. He 
thought that aman could get enough pleasure in 
walking, driving, conversing with people, or play- 
ing with children. These were the sole amusements 
in which he indulged, if amusements they might be 
called. 

His memory was remarkable. He seldom forgot 
a face, and could usually tell on the spur of the 

95 


B 


96 CHARACTER INDICATORS. 


moment where he had met some acquaintance years 
before. Many times he would remember the mi- 
nute details of the meeting, and recall incidents that 
the acquaintance had forgotten. The distinguishing 
traits of his memory, however, were centered on 
the Bible. He could quote passage after passage, 
ehapter after chapter. He seemed to know the book 
by heart, and was seldom at fault in telling one 
where to find certain passages. It has been said 
that he never forgot an anecdote. He was an ex- 
pert at handling every interesting phase of life which 
came under his notice. He never tired his auditors 
with useless explanatory words. He usually left 
something of the anecdote for their imagination. 
He had the happy faculty for selecting anecdotes to 
adorn his text, and to fix a particular point which 
he wished to impress upon the minds of his auditors. 
When one listened to his sermons, he was reminded 
of that peculiar trait in the character of Lincoln, 
which has been so strongly brought out by the his- 
torians. 

Mr. Moody was a great admirer of Lincoln, and 
in the latter part of 1860 or early in 1861, Mr. Lin- 
coln visited Chicago, and was importuned by Mr. 
Moody to visit his North Side Sunday-school. Mr. 
Lincoln complied with his request. The Sunday- 
school building was crowded when Mr. Lincoln ar- 
rived, and he was greeted with cheers by the schol- 
ars. Mr. Moody: insisted that Mr. Lincoln should 
talk to his boys. Mr. Lincoln wanted to know what 
he should talk about. Mr. Moody said: ‘‘Any- 
thing you like.’’ Whereupon the President pro- 
ceeded to instill in the minds of his youthful audi- 
tors that the greatest gifts of a nation—that the 





Copyrigat, 1900,by Rot. O. Lav. 


IRA D. SANKEY. 


nied Mr. Moody for twenty-five years, and was intimately 


The man who accompa 
associated with him in his best work. 








CHARACTER INDICATORS. - 99 


greatest honors which could be bestowed upon man 
—were open to any American boy, who had ambi- 
tion, and who would lead a proper course in life. 
He referred incidentally to the great struggle which 
was then coming on between the North and South, 
and tried to impress upon their minds a reverence 
for the flag and for their country. 

Mr. Moody was quite an admirer of Garibaldi, 
the great Italian statesman, and while he did not 
agree with him in all things, yet he did admire his 
enthusiasm. He said he never saw his name in the 
newspapers or in a book but he read what was said 
about him. He said he could not help but admire 
aman whose advocacy of the cause of freedom was 
stronger than his desire for his own comfort. = 

Mr. Moody could not sing a single note and could \ 
hardly distinguish one tune from another. He was 
a firm believer in music, however, in religious work, 
as has been shown in several instances in this book, 
and especially in Mr. Moody’s eulogy of Mr. Bliss. — 

Mr. Moody was a great believer in advertising. 
He thought it should be done judiciously. He said 
one time that if business men conducted their busi- 
ness in the same manner as churches, they would 
fail inside of six months. He could not see the idea 
of having millions of dollars locked up in church 
edifices and furnishings, which were closed six days 
in the week. He said he could conceive of no 
greater waste of capital. He said that almost the 
only notice you could find on some churches was that 
of the undertaker. He thought there should be 
bulletin boards on every church. 

Mr. Moody was a firm believer in the idea that 
people would instantly know each other in heaven. 


100 CHARACTER INDICATORS. 


He said on one occasion that he did not think when 
he got there that he would have any trouble in rec- 
ognizing Paul or John or Elisha. 

He expressed himself as being opposed to the the- 
ater for various reasons, but among the principal 
ones was that they had no regard for the Sabbath; 
that it was a place where fallen women frequented 
and thatin the building or near by could always 
be found a saloon. That he did not think it was 
elevating to associate in that connection with this 
kind of people, and for that reason he believed that 
one’s time could be better employed elsewhere. 

In speaking of Sunday newspapers, he said that 
one of his friends one time made an analysis of the 
Sunday papers of New York. This friend had been 
advised that all of the Sunday newspapers published 
sermons and that the character of the other matter 
was such as might be safely taken into the home 
and was considered very elevating and entertain- 
ing. This friend found that a large per cent of the 
matter was sporting, murders, suicides, divorces, 
fashions, political, and foreign news, aggregating 
something like nine hundred columns, and that the 
religious news amounted to only three and a quar- 
ter columns. 

First impressions of the great evangelist were dis- 
appointing. Hewas neither of commanding height 
nor striking form. He was the appearance of the 
substantial, prosperous business man of the world; 
nor was the effect more marked after he began to 
speak. His voice, while strong and pleasant, had | 
none of the magnificent qualities possessed by Henry 
Ward Beecher. He had no polish of rhetoric, nor 
elements of diction, and yet the people went in 


CHARACTER INDICATORS. 101 


crowds to hear him, and were turned from the doors . 
atevery meeting. Some no doubt came to hear him! 
through curiosity, others were drawn because of the | 
interest in the work he represented, but the real | 
secret lay undoubtedly in the man himself. He was 
tremendously inearnest. Roughinspeech he might | 
be, but he impressed you with the sense that he be- | 
lieved every word that he said, that he considered | 
his ideas of transcendentimportance. He told plain 
truths and did not mince his words in the telling. He 
talked face to face with his audiences. He had no | 
new Gospel. Disciples of newer methods of scrip- 
turalinterpretation urged their views upon him, but 
he said that he had no time to investigate such 
things. He did not talk about the terrors of hell. 
He gave warnings of the consequences of evil deeds, 
encouraging to repentance. 

His success from the beginning of his work in 
getting such money as he needed for the purpose of 
benevolence has been amazing. He understood the ,/ 
secret of reaching the pockets of men of wealth. 
‘Last of all the beggar died also,’ is the epitaph 
which he laughingly said should be inscribed upon 
his tombstone. 

He died a poor man. Vast sums had been given / 
him by people whose hearts were warmed by him/ 
into new life, but he accepted nothing for his own 
use. Princely royalties received from the sale of 
the popular Moody and Sankey Hymn-books have 
all been used in the support of his .public work! 
Not a penny had been expended upon himself. 
There isn’t a good photograph of him in existence. 
He would not permit them to be taken, lest some 
should accuse him of using the proceeds of their sales 


102 CHARACTER INDICATORS. 


for private gain. He was careful to avoid every 
appearance of questionableness. He inspired abso- 
lute confidence in the integrity of his manhood. 

A writer, in describing the meetings at the Hip- 
podrome, New York, which stood on the ground 
where the Madison Square Garden now stands, in 
1876, says of Mr. Moody: 

‘‘He is a man of another and different class from 
Mr. Sankey. Tall, stalwart, squarely, massively 
built. At first the physique and general appearance 
of the man seem heavy. The head is attached to 
the body by a short neck. The forehead is rather 
broad than high. The nose is not classical, nor are 
the eyes large or lustrous, but the whole man is 
illustrative of strength and thoroughness and seems 
to have untold source of will and determination to 
draw upon. Mr. Moody’s features have been some- 
what etherealized in the engravings, and none we 
have yet seen resemble him. The head recalls 
slightly the Socratic lineaments, and Socrates had 
not a classical face. There isnothing asceticin Mr. 
Moody’s appearance, for it is blunt and hardy. He 
wears a long, flowing beard, and a heavy moustache, 
which partly hide any emotional expressions. His 
voice has its peculiarities. Naturally it must have 
been what teachers of declamation call ‘an impos- 
sible voice,’ but by dint of training it accomplishes 
its purpose admirably. It can be heard anywhere 
in the largest hall. If there is no grace in Mr. 
Moody, there is no awkwardness, the gestures are 
sober. He never thumps nor bangs nor forges out 
the text on imaginary anvils.’’ 

When John Wesley felt with grief that Whitfield 
was drawing souls from his church, the grand old 


CHARACTER INDICATORS. 103 


man said: “‘Do men gather from his amorous way 
of praying to Christ or that luscious way of preach- 
ing his righteousness in real holiness?’’ 

Mr. Moody’s manneris heartless. Itis not always 
that he is at the highest point of tension. There 
are lots of shadows in his preaching. The accu- 
mulative power which puts him in close connection 
with the thousands, and which imbues them with the 
hold feeling, is not always foreseen, and for that 
very reason is all the more impressive. It may be 
that the first text chosen by him, which as a scrip- 
tural trellis his tree is to grow on, is too scant and 
restrictive. Incidentally he supplements this text 
with new ones, and the inspiration comes. Then 
suddenly issues forth a new growth, which bears 
both its flowers and fruits. 

Rev. H. W. Webb-Peploe, D. D., Vicar of St. 
Paul’s, Onslow Square and Prebendary, and St. 
Paul’s Cathedral, London, in writing to a religious 
journal in August, 1896, of the great Evangelist, 
said: ‘*Mr. Moody’s work whether at home or abroad 
has been up-reared upon three foundations, which 
if anything can make a human work indestructible 
will certainly guarantee the after results of his toil. 

‘‘First: Every stone has been laid upon the solid. 
basis of prayer; God’s grace, God’s gardens and 
God's glory have been sought without ceasing, and 
before another step has been taken, whether at 
Northfield or Chicago, it has been made as certain 
as prayer, and its wonderful answers can make it, 
that the faith of the Almighty was upon the under- 
taking. Let those who will scoff at the power of 
prayer, Dwight L. Moody and his work are magnifi- 
cent testimonies to all who’have the humility and 


104 CHARACTER INDICATORS. 


the will to be convinced that God is, indeed, a 
prayer-answering God, and that they who put their 
trust in him shall never lack for wisdom or for sup- 
plies. The first power in Northfield is the power 
of prayer. 

“Second: Upon every soul with whom Mr. Moody 
has had to deal, he has unceasingly and with coura- 
geous determination impressed his simple scriptural 
capacity, which tells of the infinite love of God, of 
the perfect atonement wrought for sin, of the death 
of Lord Jesus Christ, of the absolute knowledge of 
the new birth by the Spirit, and of the wondrous 
power of that Holy Spirit to sanctify all who receive 
him into their souls. 

“There is no uncertainty about Dwight L. Moody's 
evangelism, and while Mr. Sankey and others 
should be never forgotten, but honored and rejoiced 
over as God’s power and song, and while multitudes 
hold to the sweet singer a debt of infinite gratitude, 
it is quite certain that the rock upon which all 
the educational and evangelistic results of these 
brethren have been based, is that solid rock of the 
atonement or gospel of substitution so freely 
announced by Mr. Moody and his co-workers, 
whether as preachers or singers of the gospel. 

“*But not only has the divine aid been sought and 
the divine council been declared at every step of 
Mr. Moody’s work, but we must if we would learn 
the real secret of its success, notice that. 

‘‘Third: The Divine Being has in everything and 
at all times been acknowledged as the author or 
giver of all good gifts, wisdom and money, power 
and success. ‘The Lord for whose glory every step 


CHARACTER INDICATORS. 105 


must be taken, and as the Master to whose guidance 
every detail must be submitted.’ ”’ 

At Northfield no man is allowed to glory in men. 
The work is the Lord’s. He must rule at all points 
and receive the full honor for all that succeeds. 
Mr. Moody would be the first to acknowledge that 
he owes an incalculable debt to his mother and to 
his wife, who have so long been the blessing home 
spirits of his life. In Mr. Moody’s children the 
father has living monuments of his wisdom and 
power in the home. And yet not for one moment 
either in Northfield or Chicago is any ruler acknowl- 
edged or spoken of but Jehovah. These are the 
secrets or grounds of the success which God has so 
generously given to his servant. 

Mr, James H. Whiton, in August, 1896, said of 
Mr. Moody: “‘Mr. Moody ranks as high in the 
qualities of insight, prominence and energy, which 
make great administrators of business, as in those 
who make a successful evangelist. And these he 
gave a splendid administration in the organizing, 
financing and direction of the six months’ evan- 
gelistic campaign in Chicago during the World’s 
Fair, and yet no man ever had a more humble 
estimate of himself. If he can get others to 
speak, he prefers to listen. He values the printed 
page also, and has been busy with his pen in produc- 
ing quite a library of books or documents, some two 
dozen in all, some of which have been sold far 
above 100,000 copies. What General Booth’s books 
are to his army, these are for the masses Mr. Moody 
has inspired. Some of them have been translated 
into Swedish, German and Danish-Norwegian. Nor 
are they allowed to wait for buyers. He has organ- 


106 CHARACTER INDICATORS. . 


ized a colportage association to spread the sale of 
these and similar books. The profits support the 
workers in their work. One book in the list is 
especially characteristic of the man, the Northfield 
edition of Bagster’s Bible, especially prepared 
according to Mr. Moody’s suggestion, for the use of 
his students. 

Rev. W. C. Gannett, in an address before the 
Free Religious Society of Providence, R. L., in 1877, 
said of Mr. Moody: 

‘“‘T think the way to look at Moody and his work 
is somewhat in this wise: Here is a great religious 
phenomenon. We study the phases of history in 
religion. We watch in the lands of the present the 
Indian with his totems, the Buddhist at his shrine, 
the Mohammedan on his praying-carpet in the des- 
ert, the Roman Catholic before his ribboned and 
jeweled Virgin, the Presbyterian with his Sunday 
face—it is a family history. They are all our ances- 
tors or cousins. But here is something wondrous in 
religious happenings in our day and in our midst. 
We need not travel far in time or in space to watch 
it. Two men have been going through the capitals 
of the highest English-speaking civilization. Wher- 
ever they come, the crowd gathers before their lips, 
and light hearts grow heavy and then light again 
with a new kind of joy, and many a selfish life grows 
earnest for the time, at least, and many a drunkard 
gives up drinking and struggles as he never strug- 
gled yet before he falls again. 

‘‘In Boston, twice or thrice a day, four and five 
and six thousand people fill a vast building to hear 
them. What go they out tosee? A man big-bod- 
ied, short-necked, heavy-faced, harsh-voiced, of no 


CHARACTER INDICATORS. 107 


culture, such as colleges and books supply, poor in 
grammar, poorer in pronunciation, and poverty is 
not the word to describe his lack of grace in manner. 
But here is the fact—six thousand people, men and 
women, old and young, life-tired and life-jubilant 
people, come twice aday to hear him. The edu- 
cated ministers, their usual teachers, are his serv- 
ants. Hesays to this man ‘Speak,’ and he speak- 
eth; to that man ‘Pray,’ and he prayeth. Here is 
something not to be ignored or pooh-poohed away. 
Can it be explained? | 
‘““The man strikes straight for your conscience, and 
he deals with certain universal forms about the con- 
science. Not all men carry ideas, not all men carry 
feelings which can be moved by a word said to them 
in common; but every man who goes to the Taber- 
nacle carries a conscience, and knows what Moody 
means when he says straightforwardly: ‘You area 
sinner; you need cure; you feel mighty little power 
to cure yourself; there is a power that can cure you; 
lay hold of it—here it is, and be well.’ And Mr. 
Moody cannot philosophize about this matter—sin; 
he hardly tries to—is the last man to succeed if he 
tried. Neither can his audience philosophize about 
it. But that inability helps, not hinders, the effect. 
That saves time, and keeps the aim to the target. 
There is a clear track between his lips and your 
conscience. He knows what he is talking about, / 
and you know, too, be the doctrine what it may. | 
‘‘Another secret is an open secret. He preaches 
in pictures and stories. A sermon of his is a cabi- 
net of anecdotes, is a little picture gallery. He 
states his point in a few words, and then, instead of 
moralizing over it, he says: ‘I remember a man in 


108 CHARACTER INDICATORS. 


Glasgow,’ and everybody listens to find out about 
that Glasgow man. And when he is through with 
him, the Chicago man is ready, and when he is dis- 
missed, you have Mr. Moody’s point vividly etched 
on your mind ready to be carried away in memory. 
His anecdotes are anecdotes of the conscience, gath- 
ered in his long experiences, most of them moulded 
by truth into telling shapes. Not all, however. 
Some of them are very wooden yet, and sometimes 
they act like boomerangs, and lay the teaching flat. 
But he can take a little Bible incident, and fill in 
and fill in with details, until you have a special cor- 
respondent’s photograph instead of two or three 
Bible verses. And this, till there is too much of it, 
is fascinating, and many people can stand a great 
deal of it. It is Sunday-school talk, and we all like 
to be treated as children in this way. In the best 
bred Temple as well as in the rough and ready Tab- 
ernacle the anecdote is often the liveliest part of 
the sermon. If I should begin right here, ‘I re- 
member a man,’ you would all look up, and I should / 
have you as longas I held onto him. Now, Mr. / 
Moody never lets him go beyond arm's length, and 
as a consequence, everything he says is personal- 
ized, living, dramatic, easy to understand, hard to 
forget. 

‘Ts not that self-surrender the supreme necessity 
of here and now, if you have never made it? And 
is it not ‘new birth’ when made? And is it not an 
interior act that does precede all outward deeds? 
And in that inward struggle between the higher 
‘and the lower self, that wrestle between a conscience 
and the lawful right, that knowledge that now and - 
here it must be settled. If you go off from that 


CHARACTER INDICATORS. ‘109 


moment of clear conviction without the self-surren- 
der to the Highest, goes not your soul towards sui- 
cide? And when, by the surrender you get upon 
God’s side, feel you not as if His entire Almightiness 
were pledged to give you strength henceforth as his 
co-worker? These are only facts that you and I 
ought to be able to recognize under any symbol. 
The poor drunkard, the light-living woman, the 
selfish husband, the thieving merchant, the restless- 
hearted boy or girl, know what he means. They 
know very well that his ‘Come to Jesus,’ whatever 
else it means, means consecration to a new and bet- 
ter life, that to believe in Him, to accept Him, means 
a turning about—conversion. 

““They are not utter fools. It is not a pantomime 
of private theatricals—it is a conscience wrestling 
with the living God. And shall we laugh or cavil 
at the symbol? You do not laugh at the idea of con- 
secration to the highest right you know? No, your 
heart leaps and aches at the thought, your cheeks 
flush with the yearning to do that heroism, your 
tongue has no ha! ha! for that; but that is what 
your Evangelical neighbor called ‘Coming to Jesus.’ 
Are you going to call it cant? His symbol serves 
him as yours serves you. Honor your own in hon- 
oring his. Do I idealize Mr. Moody and his con- 
verts by these words? They do not consciously 
mean anything so intensely moral as this—I hear 
some one protest. The consecration that you make 
centrally in the ‘Come to Jesus’ may be these, in- 
deed, but it is the incentive rather than the central 
thing. The central thing with them is not charac- 
ter, but salvation, that imputed righteousness that 
buys off their punishment for sin, that indulgence 


110 CHARACTER INDICATORS. 


element of which the Roman Catholic indulgence is 
only a lower form. I doubt not that it is so with 
some, and that with still more—with very many, 
although they fully mean a find of consecration, 
and only sing— 
‘Till to Jesus’ work you cling, 
Doing is a deadly thing.’ 

That streets tend to make them feel that doing isa 
comparatively indifferent thing, after they cling to 
Him; in short, that the ‘symbol’ like idols every- 
where, often gets the worship away from the inner 
moral meaning. Without abatement of this kind, 
I frankly own is exaggeration in the way I have put 
the matter. But I believe that truer estimate of a 
movement like the revival is gotten by making an 
abatement from this way and looking at it, rather 
than by approaching it in the opposite spirit and 
with a little pity to abate our scorn. It is very easy 
to pick out many a bit from Mr. Moody’s talk that 
seems to contradict all this. ‘The Greatest Sin of 
the world is unbelief.’ ‘If Iread my Bible right there 
is no hope out of Christ,’ and soon. But these are 
to be interpreted by his prevailing method, not that 
by these. 

‘*That he confounds his symbol with his substance 
utterly, that the two are one to him—is that any 
reason why we should make the same mistake? 
And he would laugh about all this talk about sym- 
bols, nor understand a word of it. But get him to 
tell you what he means by ‘belief’ and ‘out of 
Christ,’ and in two minutes you will probably find 
him deep in the morality, spite of himself, or rather, 
because of himself, for that is what his Christology 
is in his heart of hearts. 


CHARACTER INDICATORS. 111 


““Can I not be large-natured enough and trust my 
nature enough to entertain them all in my own soul, 
and say to each with infinite sincerity, Brother? The 
man or the party who does this most heartily and 
fully is thereby fitted best to make his own light 
shine. The only excuse for warning another mart 
to give up his thoughts and take on ours is our belief) 
that ours will bless him more—excuse, indeed, to 
furnish missions and enthusiasm. The most of us 
are so eagerly unselfish in our proselyting that we 
call hard names and feel bitter against him if he 
dees not accept our friendly offer. Let us rather fall 
back on our unity with him, make our own light 
shine the better and wait. 

““Best of all methods to recommend an unpopular 
faith to acceptance is being brave in thought, yet 
broad in sympathies. Not visibly brave and invis- 
ibly broad, as some are apt to be. Not visibly broad 
and invisibly brave, like certain other friends, but 
brave, so that men will say ‘Heisa radical’; broad, , 
so that men shall add: ‘He is reverent,’ and by 
being so religious in actual life that, as far as one is 
‘known, men and women shall be confronted bya 

living proof that what they may call ‘infidelity’ is a 
least fidelity to high morality and widely uae 
unselfishness. Live up to the motto,‘Freedom with 
Fellowship in Religion,’ and then within some hum- 
ble sphere, we cannot help being its missionary, for 
as we go our whole bearing will preach it—it, the 
Freedom with the Fellowship.”’ 


CHAPTER: X. 


THEIR ENGLISH VISIT. 


After the Chicago fire, Mr. Moody received what 
he termed a “‘call from on High’”’ to visit England. 
So, in 1873, accompanied by Mr. Sankey and their 
respective families, they arrived in Liverpool. Mr. 
Moody had previously received two invitations from 
London clergymen to come and hold meetings 
in that city, and it was with this in view that he 
made the trip. On his arrival in England, what 
was his surprise to learn that both ministers were 
dead. The evangelists had taken but a small 
amount of money with them, and they were conse- 
quently about stranded. Mr. Moody’s financial 
genii, however, came to his aid, and he at once issued 
an edition of song books, which brought them in 
sufficient money to pay their expenses, and became a 
wonderful success from the start, many thousands 
of copies being sold and much revenue being 
derived therefrom. Mr. Moody remembered that 
he had had some correspondence with a minister at 
York. He wrote to that- gentleman of his arrival 
in London, and of his disappointment in not finding 
the two friends he had come to see, and suggested 
that it might be well to start the meetings at York. 
The York minister replied that he did not think the 
time propitious for a revival, but this did not pre- 
vent Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey from going there. 

112 


THEIR ENGLISH VISIT. 113 


Their reception was not the most cordial. Their 
methods of advertising were so new and different 
from what the conservative English church people 
had been used to, that they were looked upon with 
suspicion. They advertised their meetings in the 
daily press, and placed large posters on the dead 
walls. 

At the first prayer-meeting, held on Sunday morn- 
ing in a small room of the Association building, only 
four persons were present; and Mr. Moody has char- 
acterized that as the best service he ever attended. 
The clergy looked coldly on the evangelists as 
intruders, and most of the churches were closed to 
them. They labored on bravely against these dis- 
couragements for a month, and were comforted by 
seeing above two hundred converts to Christ. Their 
work at Sunderland began on Sunday, July 27th, at 
the invitation of a Baptist pastor. The ministers 
still held aloof, and even the Young Men’s Christian 
Association eyed them suspiciously for a week before 
offering the hand of fellowship. But the meetings 
steadily waxed larger. 

The evangelists were invited to Newcastle-on-the- 
Tyne by the chief ministers of that town, and were 
heartily sustained by the leaders of the congrega- 
tions. And now Mr. Moody confessed his hope. 
‘“We are on the eve of a great revival which may 
cover Great Britain, and perhaps make itself felt in 
America, And why may not the fire burn as long 
asI live? When this revival spirit dies, may I die 
with it.’’ His prophetic words met an immediate 
fulfillment. All the meetings were thronged with 
attentive listeners, and as many as thirty-four ser- 
vices were held in a single week. A noonday prayer 


114 THEIR ENGLISH VISIT. 


meeting was organized, while special efforts were 
made to reach the factory hands and business men. 
An all-day meeting was held on September roth, 
wherein seventeen hundred participated. One hour 
was spent in Bible reading, another on the promises, 
and the last in an examination of what the Scriptures 
teach concerning Heaven. The town was wonder- 
fully awakened, and every night sinners were drawn 
to the uplifted Savior. 

Edinburgh was prepared for the manifestation of 
a signal blessing by a series of union prayer-meet- 
ings held in October and November, which softened 
and unified the hearts of Christians of various 
names. Henceit wasthat the evangelists were wel- 
comed in such a spirit of sympathy that captious 
criticism was unthought of. The ministry of song 
was an unheard-of innovation. Yet the rooted aver- 
sion of the Scottish people to the singing of aught 
but psalms, gave way quickly to the evident testi- 
mony of the Spirit to the spirituality of his messages 
and the tenderness of his voice. On the first day, 
Sunday, November 23d, the Music Hall was thronged 
with two thousand auditors, and many more were 
excluded. Five hundred met at noon on Monday 
for prayer, and that attendance was soon doubled. 
Meetings for inquirers was held after each service. 
Three hundred in the first week confessed their 
sins had been forgiven. Their ages ranged from 
seventy-five to eleven. Students and soldiers, poor 
and rich, the backsliding, intemperate, and skep- 
tical, were all represented. The largest halls were 
found to be too small to accommodate the eager audi- 
ences. A striking case of conversion was that of a 
notorious infidel, the chairman of a club of free- 





Copyright, 1900, by Robt. O. Law. 
MR. MOODY’S CHARACTERISTIC ATTITUDE. 
This was a favorite gesture of Mr. Moody when making a telling scriptural point. 





THEIR ENGLISH VISIT. EG 


thinkers. He declared his utter disbelief in the 
value of prayer, and defied Mr. Moody to test its 
power on him. The evangelist accepted the chal- 
lenge in faith, and remembered him continually in 
his petitions till he heard of his finding Christ, 
months afterward. An impressive watch-meeting 
was held on the last night of the year 1873, anda 
special blessing was besought for the British people. 
The week of prayer, from the 4th to the 11th of 
January, 1874, was observed throughout all Scotland, 
as a season of united prayer for invoking the Lord 
to visit the nation, and the entire world in mercy. 
The most remarkable feature of this revival has 
been described as ‘‘the presence and the power of the 
Holy Ghost, the solemn awe, the prayerful, beliey- 
ing, expectant spirit, the anxious inquiry of unsaved 
souls, and the longing of believers to grow more like 
Christ—their hungering and thirsting after holi- 
ness.’’ Similar characteristics have marked the 
advent of these yoke-fellows in every community. 
‘his mission in Edinburgh, which lasted till the 21st 
of January, 1874, resulted in adding three thousand 
to the city churches. 

At Dundee, meetings were held in the open air, 
at which from ten to sixteen thousand were present. 
Four hundred converts attended the meeting for 
praise and instruction. The city of Glasgow was 
reached on Sunday, February 8th. The first audi- 
ence consisted of three thousand Sunday-school 
’ teachers; the prayer-meeting opened with half that 
number. The Crystal Palace, which held above five 
thousand, was always crowded, though admission 
could only be had by ticket. To meet the emer- 
gency, special meetings were organized for young 

% 


118 THEIR ENGLISH VISIT. 


men and young women, inquirers, workingmen, 
and the intemperate. Seventeen thousand signa- 
tures to the pledge were secured here. So the 
work of awakening went on for three months, 
steadily increasing in power. On the last Sun- 
day afternoon, a great audience of some twenty 
or thirty thousand gathered in the Palace garden, 
and hung on the words of Mr. Moody, as: he 
spoke from the seat of a carriage. More than 
three thousand united to the city congregations, the 
large proportion of whom were under twenty-five. 
Short visits were then made to Paisley, Greenock 
and Gourock. In the summer a tour was taken 
through the Highlands, for the sowing of the seed 
of the Word. Meetings were held in the open air at 
Perth, Aberdeen, Inverness, and elsewhere; and 
many souls were won. In Ireland, the common 
people heard the preacher gladly. The good work 
began at Belfast, on Sunday, September 6, 1874. 
To reach as many as possible, separate sessions were 
had for women and for men, for professing Chris- 
tians, for the unconverted, and for inquirers, for 
young men and for boys. Huge gatherings were 
also addressed in the Botanic Gardens, a space of six 
acres being filled with attentive hearers. On Mon- 
day, September 27th, a remarkable meeting of eight 
hours for inquirers was held, wherein above two 
hundred young men came unto Jesus and took His 
yoke upon them. And when the young converts 
were collected into a farewell meeting, tickets for 
2,150 were granted to such applicants. 

Dublin, five-sixths of whose inhabitants were not 
Protestant, awoke into a newness of religious life on 
the advent of the evangelists. From the 25th of 


THEIR ENGLISH VISIT. 119 


October to the z9th of November, the whole city 
was stirred in a wonderful way. The great Exhi 
bition Palace contained audiences in the evenings 
and on Sundays of from twelve to fifteen thousand. 
At the prayer-meetings and Bible readings, the 
number often exceeded two thousand. Many 
Roman Catholics were attentive listeners, and 
parish priests as well. The stillness of these vast 
assemblies was very marked. Truly the Lord was 
faithful in answering the prayer Mr. Moody con- 
tinually offered in private: ‘‘O God, keep the people 
still, hold the meeting in Thy hand.’’ These labors 
ended with a three-days’ convention, at which eight 
hundred ministers attended, from all parts of Ire- 
land. Above two thousand young converts con- 
fessed their new-born faith. 

Manchester for eight months had besought a bless. 
ing on its people; and these preparatory services 
were closed with a Communion in which two thou- 
sand Christians united. The month of December 
was devoted here to evangelistic work. In spite of 
the wintry weather, the halls were crowded, and 
overflow meetings had to be organized. Here, as 
elsewhere, the large proportion of men in attend- 
ance was noticeable. The city was mapped out into 
districts, and the duty of distributing cards at every 
dwelling was assigned to a large corps of volunteers. 
On one side of these was printed the hymn ‘‘Jesus 
of Nazareth Passeth By;’’ and on the other, a 
short address by Mr. Moody, his text being Rev- 
elations iii., :20. The efforts of the Young Men’s 
Christian Association to purchase a suitable build- 
ing met with a cordial indorsement, and a fourth of 


120 THEIR ENGLISH VISIT. 


the entire amount needed was obtained at the first 
public meeting. 

In Sheffield, the scheme of house-to-house visita- 
tion had to be abandoned in order to secure the co- 
operation of the clergy of the Church of England. 
The opening meeting was held on New Year’s eve, 
and the address in that watch-night service was 
upon Work. The great congregation, in response 
to Mr. Moody’s request, finished the old year and 
began the new on their knees. For a fortnight the 
dwellers in this industrial town collected in such 
numbers as to pack the halls and the sidewalks 
about them, so that the evangelist had frequently 
to speak in the open air. The work at Birming- 
ham, “‘the toy-shop of the world,’’ was also limited 
for lack of time. The spacious Town Hall was 
crowded on January 17, 1875; and for the other 
gatherings, even Bingley Hall, which held twelve 
thousand, proved too small. Another Christian 
convention was held, at which above a thousand 
ministers attended. Sixteen hundred converts re- 
ceived tickets to the special meeting for counsel. 
After pausing a week for a vacation, these lay apos- 
tles began their ministry of a month at Liverpool on 
February 7th. Victoria Hall, a wooden structure, 
able to shelter eleven thousand, was expressly 
erected for their reception. It was crowded at all 
the night services, while an average of six thousand 
attended the Bible lectures and noon meetings for 
prayer. These three services were held every day 
except Saturday, when these devoted laborers took 
the rest which their overtaxed energies so impera- 
tively demanded. The house-to-house visitation 
was resumed here, and efforts were made to have a 


THEIR ENGLISH VISIT. 121 


personal talk with the non-churchgoers. The cor- 
ner-stone for the new hall of the Y. M. C. A. was 
laid, and a convention held for two days, which was 
largely attended by ministers and laymen. 

Four months were devoted to evangelizing the 
gigantic metropolis of London. Four centers were 
selected for preaching. Agricultural Hall, at Isling- 
ton, North London, could seat 14,000 and give 
standing room for 6,000 more; Bow Road Hall, in the 
extreme east had 10,000 sittings; the Royal Opera 
House in the west end was in the aristocratic quarter 
of Westminster; and Victoria Theater, in the south, 
was used until Camberwell Hall was completed in 
June. This gospel campaign—the mightiest ever 
undertaken by any evangelist—was preceded by a 
course of union prayer-meetings for five months, that 
the Lord might prepare the way for a glorious man- 
ifestation of His power by purging the hearts of 
His own followers. A private conference was also 
held in advance with fifteen hundred of the city 
clergy, in order to explain the usual plan of proced- 
ure, and remove any misapprehensions that might 
exist. The whole city was parceled out for canvass- 
ing, and countless bands of yoke-fellows were sent 
out to leave at every dwelling the tract drawn up 
by Mr. Moody, and to tender an invitation to the 
services. Among these laborers was an old woman 
aged eighty-five years, who fulfilled her duties faith- 
fully, and met everywhere words of kindness. This 
wonderful mission was opened on Tuesday evening, 
the 9th of March, at Islington. Fora time the ser- 
vices were met with mockery and ribald speeches 
without, by disorderly men and women. But these 
demonstrations soon subsided, as the real piety of 





122 THEIR ENGLISH VISIT. 


the speakers became evident. Fully 80,000 attended 
the services of the first three days, and 45,000 heard 
the three addresses on the Sunday following. At 
the Royal Opera House, the nobility and gentry of 
England were directly reached by Bible readings, 
and members of the royal family were frequently 
present. The last gospel meeting was greater than 
any preceding, and a great number arose to receive 
the Lord Jesus Christ. The final meeting of thanks- 
giving was held at Mildmay Park Conference Hall, 
on July 12th. Seven hundred ministers were pres- 
ent to say farewell to the evangelist, whom they 
were so loth to see depart. Dr. A. Bonar testified 
that the work of increase was still going on in Glas- 
gow, with at least 7,000 members already added to 
its churches.’ Other ministers bore witness to the 
abundant fruit of the revival. Then, after silent 
prayer, the two evangelists hastily withdrew, not 
daring to expose themselves to the ordeal of part- 
ing with so many dear associates. They had held 
285 meetings in London; these were attended by 
fully 2,500,000 people; the expenses were $140,000. ~ 
These companions came together at the final meet- 
ingsin Liverpool. They sailed homeward on the 
6th of August, attended by many loving prayers, 
and arrived in New York on the r4th. 

It was during their first meetings in England, 
that a rumor was circulated throughout the British 
Isles, that Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey were frauds 
of the rankest order, and that they had no standing 
whatever in America, and particularly in Chicago, 
from whence they hailed. Mr. Moody did not pay 
much attention to this at first, but it began to be so 
widely circulated that it appeared as if the conse- 


THEIR ENGLISH VISIT. 123 


quences might be serious. So he cabled to his 
friends in America, and the ministers of Chicago 
endorsed him in the following resolutions: 

““We, the undersigned pastors of the city of Chi- 
cago, learning that the Christian character of D. L. 
Moody has been attacked, for the purpose of de- 
stroying his influence as an evangelist in Scotland, 
hereby certify that his labors in the Young Men's 
Christian Association, and as an evangelist in this 
city and elsewhere, according to the best informa- 
tion we can get, have been evangelical and Christian 
in the highest sense of those terms; and we do not 
hesitate to commend him as an earnest Christian 
worker, worthy of the confidence of our Scotch and 
English brethren, with whom he is now laboring; 
believing that the Master will be honored by them 
in so receiving him among them as a co-laborer in 
the vineyard of the Lord.’’ 

While holding meetings in Liverpool, an immense 
audience was assembled one evening, which was 
being addressed by the Rev. Chas. Garrett, a Meth- 
odist minister of that city. Mr. Garrett, in his re- 
marks, deplored the fact that there was no place in 
Liverpool or any of the large English cities, where 
workmen could find recreation without spending 
their time in the saloons and drinking places. He 
thought that it would be a splendid scheme if some 
plan could be devised whereby the workmen could 
be looked after. This gave Mr. Moody an idea, and 
he was seen in a hurried whispered consultation 
with a number of the gentlemen who occupied the 
stage. Mr. Garrett finished his remarks while Mr. 
Moody was still whispering. Mr. Moody requested 
him to continue for ten minutes. Mr. Garrett con- 


124 THEIR ENGLISH VISIT. 


tinued, and at the close of his remarks, Mr. Moody 
announced that he had just formed the British 
Workmen Company—limited—with a capital of 
$50,000. That Lord So-and-So—indicating one of 
the gentlemen on the stage—had subscribed a thou- 
sand pounds; Lord So-and-So, another stage occu- 
pant, another thousand potinds, and so on, until 
forty thousand pounds had, been subscribed inside 
of ten minutes. Mr. Moody then announced that 
Mr. Garrett would take charge of the fund and pro- 
ceed to the erection of coffee houses, as outlined in 
his address, and also suggested that Mr. Garrett 
raise the balance necessary to make up the total 
capital. Mr. Garrett protested that the rules of his 
church would not permit him to remain longer in 
Liverpool, he having finished the three years’ term 
of his pastorate. Mr. Moody told him, he would 
fix that, and he did. The coffee houses were estab- 
lished in Liverpool and spread to all of the large 
cities of England. They paid, in dividends, to the 
stockholders, 25 per cent for many years, and never 
less than ro percent. In this connection it may be 
well to state that Mr. Garrett, who remained at the 
head of the institution for many years, was the first 
minister of the Methodist Church in England who 
was ever allowed to remain in one place longer 
than the stipulated three years. 

In speaking once of the incidents of his European 
visit, Mr. Moody told the following story: 

“*T went to London in 1872 just to spend three or 
four months, and one night I spoke in a prayer- 
meeting. I went into a Congregational church, and 
I preached with an unusual power. There didn’t 
seem to be anything out of the regular line in the 


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THEIR ENGLISH VISIT. 127 


service. In fact, I was a little disappointed. I 
didn’t seem to have much liberty there. That even- 
ing, at 6.30, I preached to men. ‘There seemed to 
be a great power. It seemed as if the building was 
filled with the glory of God, and I asked for an ex- 
pression when I got through. They rose by the 
hundreds. I said, ‘They don’t know what this 
means;’ so I thought I would put another test. I 
just asked them to step back into the chapel—all 
those that wanted to become Christians, but no one 
else. They flocked into the chapel by the hundreds. 
I was in great perplexity. I couldn’t understand 
what it meant. I went down to Dublin the next 
day, and on Tuesday morning I got a dispatch 
saying, ‘Come to London at once and help us.’ I 
didn’t know what to make of it, but I hastened back 
to London and labored there ten days, and there 
were four hundred names recorded at that time. 
For months I could not understand what it meant, 
but by-and-by I found out.’”’ 


CHAPTER XI. 


THE BIRMINGHAM MEETING. 


Moody and Sankey were at Birmingham in the 
early part of January in 1874. Their first meeting 
was held on Sunday morning, the 17th, at 8 o’clock, 
in the town hall. The meeting was for ‘‘Christian 
workers,’’ and the admission was by ticket. The 
morning was cheerless, damp and raw, but the 
people were crowded in every part. In the after- 
noon they held an open service in the hall, and 
thousands went away unable to getin. The great 
test, however, which they had excited came in the 
evening. In October, 1873, when Mr. Bright 
addressed his constituents after his return to the 
cabinet, he spoke in Bingley Hall, a building used 
for the annual cattle show, and as a drill hall for 
the volunteers. Various estimates were made as to 
the number of people who listened on that occasion. 
It seems probable that most of them fell far short of 
the truth. There were no seats on the floor of the 
hall, and without seats there is now reason to believe 
that the hall will hold between 20,000 and 25,000 
people. It was crowded in every part. 

For the meetings, the ‘‘Moody and Sankey Com- 
mittee’’ hired upwards of 9,000 chairs. On their 
first Sunday evening, long before 8 o’clock, when 


the services commenced, not only were all the 
128 


THE BIRMINGHAM MEETING. 129 


chairs occupied, but several thousands of people were 
standing, and thousands could not gain admission. 
It is believed by those who are in a position to 
judge, that there were fully 13,000 people present 
every night. Through the first week the hall was 
thronged in the same way, and there were vast 
crowds outside. 

On Sunday morning, January 24th, it was filled 
with people who obtained admission by tickets, and 
who, before they received their tickets declared that 
they were not in the habit of attending any place of 
worship. In the afternoon of the same day, it was 
filled with women, and a second service was held in 
the town hall for the overflow, and in the evening 
it was filled with men. There was a break on the 
Monday afternoon of the second week, when Mr. 
Moody had an engagement at Manchester. He pro- 
fessed to have met Christ on his visit to that city. 
Mr. Bright spoke in the hall that night, and it was 
most inconveniently crowded, but some people were 
of the opinion that on several of the following eve- 
nings the crowd that filled the hall for religious ser- 
vice was denser than that which filled it for the 
political demonstration. 

Night after night, long before the hour of service, 
long rows of carriages stood in the street filled with 
persons who hoped that when the crowd about the 
doors had thinned, they might be able to find stand- 
ing room just inside, and thousands streamed away 
because they found they had come too late to have 
a chance of pressing in. 

In addition to the evening service, there was a 
prayer meeting every noon, at which Mr. Moody 


gave an address of twenty or twenty-five minutes, 
g 


130 THE BIRMINGHAM MEETING. 


and Mr. Sankey sang. The meeting was held at 
first in the Town Hall, which was generally quite 
full. On the last four days it was held in Bingley 
Hall, and the attendance varied from four to six 
thousand. At three o’clock, after the first day or 
two, Mr. Moody gave a Bible lecture. He began 
in Carr’s Lane Chapel, which was soon found to be 
too small. It was then transferred to Bingley Hall, 
and the attendance varied from five to ten thousand. 

The meetings had been well advertised. The 
local newspapers published a series of articles on 
Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey before they came, 
describing the impression they had produced in 
Scotland and Ireland. The Morning News gener- 
ally gave several columns each day to the reports of 
the service. The Daily Post gave great prominence 
to this news feature, and even the local Conservative 
organ, the Daily Gazette, always had enough about 
the evangelist to attract attention. The local com- 
mittee, in addition to the newspaper notoriety, cov- 
ered the walls of the town with placards, announc- 
ing the services and these were constantly being 
renewed. When the fact became known that Bing- 
ley Hall, the largest in the city, had been filled to 
hear the strangers, it created a certain measure of 
popular excitement and curiosity, which made it 
almost certain that the hall would be filled again. 

These services were not deemed ‘‘hysterical.” 
The first sign of hysterical excitement was instantly 
repressed by Mr. Moody, and it is a curious fact 
that although the crowds were enormous, very few 
women fainted. It is said there were only three or 
four cases during the meeting. 

Mr. Sankey had a great share in esta up the 


THE BIRMINGHAM MEETING. 131 


interest in the meetings, and it is interesting at this 
time to note that the songs which to-day have lived 
and are popular in the church and evangelistic work 
were the ones used by the great singer in his Euro- 
pean meetings. The people were much in love with 
such songs as ‘‘Hold the Fort for I am Coming,” 
‘Safe in the Arms of Jesus,’’ and ‘* I am So Glad 
that Jesus Loves Me,” but it was not the singing 
only that made the services interesting. There 
was great animation and variety in them. In the 
evening they began with a hymn, which the people 
sang together, but what would be the order of the 
service no one knew before hand, and it has been 
frequently said that Mr. Moody did not even know. 
He had the instinctive perception to a remarkable 
degree whereby he could easily tell if the people 
were interested. After the first hymn somebody 
generally offered a short prayer. If it was ciear 
that the heart of the attendance went with the 
prayer, he would then read a chapter and make a 
few remarks on it as he read. If not, he would ask 
Mr. Sankey to sing a solo, or a solo with a chorus, 
in which the people joined, or else one of the most 
popular hymns; then he would read a chapter and 
perhaps have another hymn or offer a short prayer 
himself. Then would come another hymn, and 
then the sermon. Sometimes the sermon would be 
followed by asolo from Mr. Sankey. Sometimes by 
ahymn, in whichallunited. Sometimes by a prayer. 
Everything was determined by what was felt to be 
the actual mood of the moment. Generally the 
whole service was over ina little more than an hour 
and a quarter. 

““One of the elements of Mr. Moody’s power,’’ 


132 THE BIRMINGHAM MEETING. 


said a critic of the period, ‘‘consisted in his perfect 
naturalism. He had something to say and he said 
it, and said itas simply and directly to 13,000 people 
as to thirteen. He had nothing of the impudence 
into which some speakers are betrayed when they 
try to be easy and unconventional, but he talked in 
a perfectly unconstrained and straightforward way, 
just as he would talk to half a dozen old friends at 
his own fireside. The effect of this was very intel- 
ligible. One would no more think of criticising him 
than to think of criticising a man one meets in the 
street who directs you to the shortest route to the 
depot. There are some men who force one to be 
critical. There is a tendency to test every sentence 
they utter. Their words are received with a kind 
of suspicion, yet this never occurred to the people 
when they listened to Mr. Moody. Now and then 
Mr. Moody quoted a text in a very illegitimate sense. 
Now and then he advanced an argument which 
would not hold water. Now and then he laid down 
principles which seemed untenable, and there may 
have been a protest, but if so, it was only moment- 
arily.’’ 

Mr. J. R. Creed, in an article published in Pear- 
son’s Magazine, in 1898, about Moody and Sankey, 
now says, Though it is more than twenty years 
since the Americans, Moody and Sankey, left this 
country after their remarkable diatribe on British 
morals; these names are not forgotten. 

During their famous evangelistic tour over 2, 500,- 
ooo people attended their meetings in London alone, 
and when we consider the thousands that thronged 
nightly to hear them in the Provinces and in Ireland 
and Scotland, it is probable, that taking all in all, 


THE BIRMINGHAM MEETING. 133 


they addressed the greatest number of different 
people that any other preachers have succeeded in 
reaching. 

Their names, therefore, have passed into a phrase, 
and the memory has been kept green by the sale of 
their hymn books, which have attained a circulation 
of several millions, a secret the publishers will not 
divulge. 

And what wonderful men these two—orators and 
solicitors—were, whatever may be our opinion of 
their methods. 

The friends who had invited them to this country, 
and guaranteed to pay their expenses, were no 
longer alive when they at last reached Liverpool. 
To meet these predicaments, which left them com- 
pletely stranded, an edition of their hymn book was 
at once issued, part of the proceeds from the royalty 
being. sufficient to cover their personal expenses 
from the first. Indeed, so ready was the sale that 
on his return from Ireland, in 1875, Mr. Moody 
announced in public his intention of ceasing to make 
private use of the income so derived, and the bal- 
ance, which, at the close of the London mission, 
had amounted to nearly £6,000, was devoted to the 
liquidation of the debt incurred by the members of 
the Chicago church, in which Moody was interested. 

There were people who declared that Moody and 
Sankey were over here ‘‘to make as much money 
as they could out of the Lord,’’ But though fab- 
ulous sums were collected on their behalf, fabulous 
sums were also spent. In March, 1875, Moody 
received an invitation to visit London. ‘‘IfIcome,’’ 
was the preacher’s response, ‘‘you will have to 
taise £5,000 for expenses.”’ 


134 THE BIRMINGHAM MEETING. 


The answer came at once— 

““We have £10,000 ready!”’ 

As a matter of fact £28,238 gs. 6d. was altogether 
received, while the expenses amounted to £28,296 
gs. 6d., thus showing the deficit of 458. 

Moody and Sankey’s reputation had preceded 
them, and London awaited their arrival with no 
little curiosity. Who were these great men who 
placarded each town they intended to visit with 
vast posters announcing their arrival? ‘‘Moody and 
Sankey are coming!’’ Was it a traveling show or a 
circus, or some popular entertainers? . ; 

Wherever they went they engaged the largest 
buildings, and, provincial theaters and public halls 
were crammed each night from floor to skylight, 
thousands who had waited for hours struggled vainly 
for admission. 

“To hear Moody and Sankey,’’ says a writer of 
the day, in a London paper, ‘‘the theaters are 
deserted, the gin shops emptied, the streets appear 
depopulated, and the very nature and habits of a 
work-a-day'’s world were seized and transformed by 
them into something new. They came in scorn, 
- and left behind respect, surprise, new thoughts, and 
whole communities stirred to the quick.’ 

On March 16, 1875, over twenty-two thousand 
people thronged the Agricultural Hall to hear 
them, and- more than ten thousand people were 
turned away unable to obtain even standing room. 
Such various characters of all ranks and all conditions 
of men and women and children as could gather in 
the largest buildings, London had never before seen 
or known in the metropolis. During the addresses 
the audience arose literally in hundreds and 


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THE BIRMINGHAM MEETING. 137 


expressed their desire to be saved! ‘‘The cream of 
the hour,’’ Mr. Moody asserted, “‘was in the inquiry 
Toom.”” 

The Prince of Wales, Dean Stanley, and Lord 
Cairnes honored the revivalists by going to hear 
them. Already they had become popular heroes. 
One thousand pounds was offered to Mr. Moody if 
he would sit for a photograph, an offer which he, 
however, unhesitatingly declined, declaring that he 
would pay five hundred pounds to be able to prevent 
portraits of himself to be sold. Thousands of men 
and women, people of high life, who drove up in 
their carriages, poor creatures who dragged them- 
selves to the meetings on weary feet, professed to 
‘“‘find Christ."’ The converted were divided into 
classes and placed under the pastors to whose con- 
gregation they belonged. 

In speaking of Moody and Sankey, the preacher 
was always mentioned first. But toimply from this 
that the singer played an inferior part in the work 
would be both an unfair and a mistaken view. 
Sankey had one of the finest tenor voices that had 
ever been heard. When he sang he held the people 
enraptured. Moody’s eloquence it is difficult to 
criticise. To address and entertain 20,000 people 
night after night, month after month, was a per- 
formance that only a great preacher could accom- 
plish. Yet he made no attempt at rhetoric. Illus- 
tration was employed to occupy the place of argu- 
ment. Eloquence receded before a store of simple 
anecdote. 

It was Moody who knitted the attention of the vast 
audiences, who held them spellbound, and Sankey’s 
wonderful yoice which carried them away in a burst 


138 THE BIRMINGHAM MEETING. 


of spiritual enthusiasm, ceasing to leave them once 
more, in the great hush that follows, in the convinc- 
ing arguments of the preacher. 

The most extraordinary event in connection with 
Moody and Sankey’s visit to this country was in con- 
nection with their proposed visit to Eaton College. 
From some of the boys, or some of the boys’ parents, 
they received a pressing invitation to visit the school. 
The moment this became known there arose such a 
storm in London as no similar event has ever called 
forth. 

The question came up before the House of Com- 
mons. ‘Thirty-four members arose to their feet. A 
serious and animated discussion occurred in the 
House of Lords; a remonstrance, newly signed, was 
sent to the head master. 

In spite of this a large tent, capable of holding a 
thousand persons was erected in the south meadow of 
the College play field, and a public notice was given 
of a service, especially addressed to the students. 
At the last moment, however, an edict was issued 
which emphatically prohibited this. Mr. Moody at 
once appealed to the Mayor for the use of Round 
Hall, a request that was at first acceded to. Shortly 
before three, however, the hour at which the serv- 
~ ice was to commence, a notice was posted on the 
door declaring that no meeting would be held. 

Nothing daunted, Moody obtained permission to 
deliver his address in the garden of one of the houses 
in High street. At least seventy or eighty Eaton 
boys were present. The meeting was very quiet 
and orderly. It may be that a lasting impression 
was made on these youthful attendants; at all events, 


THE BIRMINGHAM MEETING. 139 


Mr. Moody's address and Sankey’s melodies could 
not have done them the slightest harm. 

When the two finally quitted the country vast 
crowds congregated at Liverpool to see them off. 
At their farewell services both Moody’s stand and 
Sankey’s organ was decorated with flowers and 
costly bouquets; their appearance was greeted with 
tremendous applause; nor is it surprising that orator 
and melodist should both be broken down on that 
occasion. 


CHA Ph: Der 


AMERICAN MEETINGS. 


Mr. Moody, at the close of one of his great meet- 
ings in Boston, gave a talk on finance and asked the 
people there to give him $30,000. He said that 
$20,000 of it would be used to defray the expenses 
of the meetings that had been held there, and $10,- 
ooo was to secure the use of the tabernacle for one 
year for gospel purposes. He stated that in the 
meeting he recently held in Chicago not only had 
they raised enough money to pay the expense of 
that meeting, but had raised $80,000 additional to 
pay the debt of the Y.M.C. A. He said that when 
this big sum had been raised, people not in sympathy 
with him or his work, stated that Moody and San- 
key had carried off a large portion of it. He said 
that if this had been true it would have been very 
good pay for three months’ work. He said if he 
had taken the money the public would have a right 
to know how they spent it. But as they were not 
employed by the public, he did not see any reason 
why he should give any statement, as there had 
never been any collection for them. He said that 
when he gave up his business in Chicago, after three 
months of the severest struggle of his life, as to 
whether he should go for dollars and cents, or for 
souls, that from that day he had no more lived for 

140 


AMERICAN MEETINGS. 141 


money than he had for water. Hesaid he had been 
offered $500 a night to lecture, and that when the 
lecture was over he could go to his hotel and get a 
comfortable night’s sleep. But during his evangel- 
ism he had worked all day and talked all night with 
inquirers, and that when he was done he was so tired 
and weak that he could hardly get to his room. 

While holding meetings at Burlington, Ia., a num- 
ber of years ago the hall was crowded so densely 
that women began to faint; one woman in particular 
fell down in a crowd in the aisle and it was with 
difficulty that she could be removed. The weather 
was bitter cold and the air inside the building was 
very bad. Mr. Moody changed his plan of con- 
ducting the meeting and would order hymns every 
five or ten minutes, at which time the windows or 
doors would be thrown wide open, allowing the air 
of the place to become clear. This was quite a re- 
lief and no bad effects were noticeable. 

At the Christian convention held in Boston, in 
1877, Mr. Moody was present and told of his own ex- 
perience in his Christian work in Chicago, and when 
his congregation was discouragingly small, he said 
he found a way to success by putting the converts 
to work trying to bring others into the fold. He 
said that one man who was converted was unable to 
speak English, and that when conversation took 
place it was done through an interpreter. This 
man wanted to do something for the cause and he 
was put to work distributing religious bills. Mr. 
Moody said that some people blessed him and some 
cursed him, but it made no difference to the man, 
for he could not understand English. But this man 
was the means of converting a great many people. 


142 AMERICAN MEETINGS. 


Mr. Moody also advocated congregational singing, 
as he believed this had done much good work. He 
said that he had been able to reach many young 
men by going to-billiard halls and singing some 
patriotic song followed by a religious hymn. He 
said that the first signs of the breaking of the ice was 
noticed in the men removing their hats and they 
soon did not object to hearing the Scriptures read 
or a prayer offered. He said that one time he took 
sixteen men out of one saloon and nine of them 
went to the inquiry room. 

In this same Boston meeting Mr. Moody was 
asked a number of questions, and among them was, 
‘‘Why don’t you teach baptism?’’ Hesaid in reply, 
“If I should teach baptism by sprinkling, I would 
lose the influence of one good sort of Christians. 
Evangelists are just to proclaim the gospel, and 
they should keep out of that controverted ques- 
tion.’’ He said the work of the evangelist was 
always in proportion to the number of churches 
interested in the movement. He said it was never 
any good arguing with an infidel, the thing was 
to pray with him. He was not a great believer in 
books or tracts, but believed in the Scripture. 

Somebody asked him how gambling in churches 
could be cured. He said, have no festivals, there is 
no gambling in prayer meetings. He said the first 
thing was to get life in yourself. In the camp Sion 
convention, held at the Hippodrome in New York 
in March, 1876, Mr. Moody said in the course of 
one of his talks on Evangelism that he believed the 
secret of John Wesley’s success was that he set 
every man to work as soon as they were converted. 


AMERICAN MEETINGS. 143 


He thought the plan a good one, as idleness was 
conducive to spiritual laziness. 

He said that sometimes a convert would wake up 
a whole community and that it was very natural 
that the first thing a man was to do after he was 
converted was to go out and tell somebody about it. 

He was not a believer in the plan of changing 
speakers each night, he said he had known of sev- 
eral times when that-had been tried and that there 
had been no good results. He thought that the 
proper way to hold a religious revival was to have 
one or two men to preach continuously for two or 
three weeks. He said that a great many meetings 
were killed because they were so long. He said 
that one of the troubles was that you preach the 
people into the spirit and out again before the meet- 
ing was over. He said that the proper thing was 
to send the people home hungry and then they 
would come again. 

The gospel campaign in the Union began at 
Brooklyn on Sunday, October 24, 1875, and contin- 
ued there until November 19th. The Rink, on 
Clermont Avenue, which had sittings for five thou- 
sand, was selected for the preaching services, while 
Mr. Talmage’s tabernacle was devoted to prayer- 
meetings. A choir of 250 Christian singers was led 
by Mr. Sankey. 

In Philadelphia a spacious freight depot, at Thir- 
teenth and Market streets, was improvised to serve 
as ahall. Chairs were provided for about 10,000 
listeners, besides a chorus of six hundred singers 
seated on the platform. The expenses were met by 
voluntary contributions outside, which amounted to 
$30,000. A corps of three hundred Christians acted 


144 AMERICAN MEETINGS. 


as ushers, anda like number of selected workers 
served in the three inquiry rooms. At the opening 
service, early on Sunday morning, November arst, 
nine thousand were present, in spite of a drenching 
storm. In the afternoon, almost twice as many 
were turned away as found entrance. Henceforth, 
until the close on January 16th, the attendance and 
popular interest never slackened. <A special service 
was held on Thanksgiving Day, and a watch-meet- 
ing on New Year’s eve, from g to 12. Efforts were 
made to reach all classes of the community, and the 
meetings for young men were specially blessed. A 
careful computation puts the total attendance at 
goo,ooo, and the converts at 4,000. Before leaving 
the city, a collection was made on behalf of the new 
hall of the Young Men’s Christian Association, and 
about $100,000 were obtained. A Christian conven- 
tion was held on the roth and 2oth of January, and 
pertinent suggestions about the methods of eyangel- 
istic work were given for the benefit of the two 
thousand ministers and laymen in attendance from 
outlying towns. 

For the mission in New York City, the Hippo- 
drome at Madison and Fourth Avenues was leased, 
ata rental of $1,500 weekly, and $10,000 were ex- 
pended in its preparation. It was partitioned into 
two halls, one seating 6,500, the other 4,000, the 
intent being to use the second for overflow meet- 
ings, and so bring such large congregations more 
completely under the speaker’s control. <A choir of 
800 singers and a corps of lay workers were organ- 
ized. The deep concern of the people to hear the plain 
gospel preached and sung was as deep here among 
all classes as elsewhere, and the attendance was un- 


AMERICAN MEETINGS. 145 


flagging from February 7th to April roth. Again, 
a Christian conference was convened for two days, 
at which Christian workers from the North and East 
took counsel together. At the final meeting for 
young converts 3,500 were present by ticket. 

Mr. Moody spent two ‘weeks in May with his 
friend, Major Whittle, at Augusta, Georgia, while 
Mr. Sankey took a rest at Newcastle. He preached 
with his usual fervor to large congregations. He 
traveled northward to Chicago by way of Nashville, 
Louisville, St. Louis and Kansas City, holding 
meetings on the way. His new church edifice on 
Chicago Avenue, was opened on his arrival. It 
was a large brick building with stone facings, meas- 
uring 120 by 100 feet, and having a bell-tower 120 
feet high. Its entire cost was $100,000, all of which 
was paid before its dedication. August and Septem- 
ber were spent in a visit to the old Northfield home- 
stead, and in little. tours to Greenfield, Springfield 
and Brattleboro. 

Chicago gave the heartiest welcome to its own 
Moody and Sankey in October, where they resumed 
the mission work suspended by them three years 
before. A tabernacle was erected which could 
shelter 10,000, and a choir of 300 singers was organ- 
ized. The city pastors gave a most cordial support, 
and its populace, many of whom had seen their 
homes twice burnt to the ground, were eager to lis- 
ten to the earnest messages of free salvation. The 
great Northwest was now moved, as never before, 
especially when tidings came of the sudden death of 
Phillip P. Bliss and his wife at Ashtabula on De- 
cember 29th. Within three months qabee converts 
were recorded in Chicago. 


146 AMERICAN MEETINGS. 


The evangelical Christians of Boston had long 
been waiting on the Lord for a special blessing on 
their city. A permanent brick edifice was built on 
Tremont Street, able to seat a congregation of six 
thousand. Dr. Tourjee gathered a body of two 
thousand Christian singers, and organized it into 
five distinct choirs. The thoughtful addresses of 
Rev. Joseph Cook were of use in preparing that cul- 
tured and critical city for the advent of the eavangel- 
ists. And the result of the religious services was 
almost beyond expectation. Instead of a single 
noon meeting for prayer, seven or eight sprang up 
throughout the city, with numbers varying from 200 
to 1,500. Ninety churches co-operated in a house- 
to-house visitation, and 2,000 visitors were enrolled 
into these bands of yoke-fellows. Throughout all 
New England the quickened activities of the 
churches were unmistakable, and the evangelical 
faith met a more respectful hearing from its think- 
ing classes than had been witnessed for a hundred 
years. 


CHAPTER? XII. 


MR. MOODY’S CRISP SAYINGS. 


Personal dealing is of the utmost importance. 
No one can tell how many souls have been lost 
through not following up the preaching of the 
Gospel by personal work. 

People are not usually converted under the preach- 
ing of the minister. It is in the inquiry-meeting 
that they are most likely to be brought to Christ. 

A doctor doesn’t prescribe cod-liver oil for all 
complaints. 

What a man wants is to beable to read his Bible, 
and to read human nature, too. 

There are a great many church-members who are 
hobbling about on crutches. 

One backslider can do more harm in the world 
than twenty Christian men can do good. 

Every man should make a public confession if 
his sin has been public. 

When you tell an unconverted person who desires 
to become a Christian that he is Ze live without sin, 
you discourage him. 

You can’t offer a man a aoe insult than to 
accuse him of telling a wilful lie. 

I challenge any infidel to put his finger on any 
promise that God has not kept. 

For 6,000 years the devil has been trying to find 
out if God has broken His word. 

147 


148 MR. MOODY'S CRISP SAYINGS. 


What a jubilee there would be in Hell to-day if 
they found God had broken His word! 

Just preach Christ, and the Spirit of God will bear 
witness. 

We want to get the church up on a higher plain. 
Let there be a teaching out of the Scriptures, and 
the church will grow. 

A great many churches in this country hardly ex- 
pect to gain in numbers. If they hold their own 
they think they are doing pretty well. 

I don’t believe a man can preach the simple Gos- 
pel faithfully, anywhere in this country, and not 
have inquirers inside of thirty days, and there wiil 
be those added to the church daily of such as shall 
be saved. 

If you can get a man to walk across a church be- 
fore all the people, and go into an inquiry-room, it 
means a great deal. 

There is nothing like keeping the people stirred 
up all the time—full of courage—full of hope. 

There is no trouble about getting the people to 
attend the weekly prayer-meeting if it is made 
interesting. 

We don’t hear of long prayers in the Bible, ex- 
cept at the dedication of Solomon’s Temple, and 
that comes but once in centuries. 

No one likes to hear a long prayer, and when a 
man is making one, very likely the people are pray- 
ing that he will stop. 

Long prayers may have been all right in other 
times, but they are not now. Men think quicker 
than they used to, and act quicker. 
~ If aman will pray fifteen minutes in a prayer- 
meeting, he will pray all the spirituality out of it. 


& 
MR. MOODY’S CRISP SAYINGS. 149 


Any minister that preaches twice on Sundays, and 
then gives a long lecture in the prayer-meeting, will 
kill any church in this country. 

I believe the time is coming when in many of our 
churches there will be a meeting every night in the 
week. 

Everything shouldn’t depend on the minister. 
What you want isto bring out all the talent you 
have got in the church. 

It helps a meeting wonderfully to introduce new 
tunes as fast as the people will learn them. 

There ought to be more effort made for good 
music in all our churches and Sabbath-schools. 

If a woman goes into a house she can sit down 
with the wife and family, and talk and pray, and 
when the man comes home in the evening he won’t 
get mad and rage ashe might if a man had been 
there. 

I firmly believe that if we had to-day, in these 
great cities, hundreds where we have one lady mis- 
sionary, we would soon break up this Nihilism, and 
Communism, and all such things. 

When a young mother is just beginning to feel 
her responsibility, it isn’t very difficult to reach her 
heart. 

When I commenced to give Bible readings, years 
ago, I used to give about forty quotations at one 
time; but I found the people got tired—the sermon 
was too heavy for them. Then I cut the number 
down to twenty. Now I have cut it to ten. If 
I can bring out the meaning of ten passages, with a 
story here and there to keep up the interest, I 
think I get more truth lodged in their minds 
than if I used a hundred passages. There is a dan- 


ra 
150 MR. MOODY’S CRISP SAYINGS. 


ger of giving too much; the people won't stand it. 
We must give them homcepathic doses. It is better 
to take a dozen passages and throw light on them 
than to run over a hundred and not say a word be- 
tween them. 

I think there is no better place for people to begin 
‘Christian work than right at their own homes. 

If a man hasn’t got a good enough record to have 
any effect at home, he won’t be of much account in 
the foreign field. 

If we keep at it three hundred and sixty-five days 
in the year, there will be a good deal of work done 
at the end of the year. 

Money is a very small account in the sight of God. 

The great trouble with many of us is, that we are 
working for God without power. 

There was atime when I thought the raising of 
Lazarus was the greatest work ever done on this 
earth. But I think the conversion of those three 
thousand Jews on the day of Pentecost was more 
wonderful still. 

There are a great many men who had power five 
years ago that haven’t got it now. They are like 
Samson robbed of his strength, or like fishermen 
working with old, broken nets. 

It is an awfully sad thing for a man to outlive his 
usefulness, to be laid aside as a vessel no longer 
meet for the Master’s use. P 

There are a good many Christians God can’t use: 
as He used them once. 

Of all the skeptics I have seen, I have never seen 
but one who claimed to have read the Bible through, 
and I doubted him, because he could not tell me «f 


MR. MOODY’S CRISP SAYINGS. 151 


but one verse in the Bible, and that was, ‘‘Jesus 
wept.” 

As for the mysteries of the Bible I am glad they 
are there, and that there are heights and depths 
that I have never been able to fathom, and length 
and breadth that no man has ever been able to dis- 
cover. IfI could take that book up and understand 
it all it would be pretty good proof that it did not 
come from God. 

It is easy to talk against the Bible, but did you 
ever think how dark this old world would be without 
it? 

Millions of men have gone down to the grave 
because of their loyalty to the Bible. Some people 
have tried to stamp it out, but God has raised up 
witnesses forit. I thank God I live where it is read. 
Anarchy, nihilism, socialism, would sweep this 
whole country, your property and your life would 
not be safe, if it was not for this old book. 

If you do not like the Bible it is because it con- 
demns your sins. So if you see a man to-morrow 
talking against the good book you may know he 
gets hit. Throw a stone among a group of dogs 
and the dog that gets hit goes off yelping every 
time. 

Take the most faithful follower of Satan in Chi- 
cago for the last five years, and take a most faithful 
follower of Jesus Christ and let the two stand on this 
platform and their very faces would tell the story. 

There is a great joy in the service of Christ that 
the world knows nothing of, and you never will 
know unless you taste it. 

If you find a man howling about hypocrites, you 


152 MR. MOODY’S CRISP SAYINGS. 


just look out for him, he doesn’t live very far from 
one himself. 

Most people have the idea that a man has got to 
join the church to be a hypocrite; my friends, I will 
find a hundred in the world while you find one in 
the church. } 

No man can believe the Bible without purifying 
his soul. 

I don’t think the prodigal son did much feeling 
till he got his feet under his father’s mahogany 
table. 

Let men act up to their convictions and what a 
meeting we would show you. 

A man who will let a saloon-keeper or a gambler 
or a harlot keep him from what is right, I greatly 
pity. 

Life is very sweet to me, and I can conceive of no 
sweeter work than that I am engaged in. 

If your excuses will not stand the light of eternity 
throw them to the four winds. 

It is the work of the shepherd to seek the lost. 
Who ever heard of a sheep seeking a lost Shep- 
herd? 

I want to tell you, if your religion isn’t saving you 
and keeping you day by day from sin, it is a shame, 
it is not the religion of Jesus Christ. 

The Catholics have the same Savior as the Protest- 
ants,—one shepherd, one Christ. 

The difficulty with a great many churches is that 
there are too many stumps in the way of the plough. 

Knowledge is certainly better than feelings. 

-If you want results, just pray. 

There is only one thing that will thoroughly sat- 

isfy a longing heart, and that is Jesus Christ. 


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MR. MOODY’S CRISP SAYINGS. 155 


You never saw a millionaire in your life, who was 
satisfied. 

You know sheep never lie down to rest until they 
get enough to eat and drink. 

I believe that where there is one sermon preached 
to the unconverted, there should be one hundred 
preached to the church members. 

I remember when I was a boy I used to attempt 
to jump over my shadow, but I never succeeded in 
getting over it. ° i 

There are quite a number of nameless characters 
in the Scriptures that have shone very brightly in 
this world in the Scripture. 

There are a good many who have an idea that 
distilling whiskey is all right if they will only give 
their money to the church. : 

A man may erect a synagogue and still be a black- 


hearted villian. 2 
Treat men as they should be treated, and see if 


you do not win their esteem and respect. 

Don't blow a trumpet and say that you have done 
so much for your servants; do it kindly and quietly. 

If you find a man that has very high thoughts of 
himself he will have very low thoughts of God. 

I pity those men who hold on with a tight grip to _ 
everything they have. 

If you want to show kindness to a person, do it 
while you are living. 

Business men can reach the men employed by 
them a good deal better than the minister. 

If we are going to get victory over the world we 
will have to get it through Christ. 

I mould’ think of talking to unconverted men 


156 MR. MOODY’S CRISP SAYINGS. 


about overcoming the world, forit is utterly impos: 
sible for them to accomplish anything. 

Don’t let any man think that he is going to over- 
come his enemies without putting forth his strength 
with God’s power. ; 

If you were to take a mill and put it forty feet 
above any river in this country, there isn’t capital 
enough in the world to make that river turn the 
mill; but get it down about forty feet and then it 
works. 

When Abraham took his eyes off God he was weak 
like other men and denied his wife. 

It is a very singular thing to notice how the men 
in the Bible, if they have fallen, have generally 
fallen on the strongest points of their own charac- 
ters. 

Abraham was celebrated for his faith, and he fell 
there; but he lost that faith and denied his wife. 

Moses was noted for his meekness and humility, 
he lost his temper and God kept him out of the 
promised land. Elijah was honored for his power 
in prayer and his courage, but he became a coward. 
Queen Jezebel scared the life nearly out of him. 
Peter was noted for his boldness, and a little maid 
frightened him nearly out of his wits. 

The most objectionable characters one meets are 
those who are attempting to walk by sight and not 
by faith. 

I believe that a great many Christians are over- 
come because they don’t know what a terrible fright 
they have. 

It is no sign because a man is a Christian that he 
is going to overcome the world. 


MR. MOODY’S CRISP SAYINGS. 157 


The worst enemy one has to overcome, after all, 
is oneself. 

I have had more trouble with D. L. Moody than 
with any other man who has ever crossed my path. 

If one member of the family is constantly snap- 
ping, the whole family will soon be snapping. 

Christianity isn’t worth the snap of a finger if it 
doesn’t straighten out characters. 

If people ain’t sure when you are telling the 
truth, there is something radically wrong, and you 
had better straighten it out at once. 

There are a great many people who only want 
enough Christianity to make them respectable. 

There is only one royal way, and that is by the 
way of Calvary. 

There is more said in the Bible against covetous- 
ness than against intemperance. 

We think when a man gets drunk he is a horrid 
monster, but a covetous man will often be received 
into the church and be put up into office, who is as 
vile and black in the sight of God as any drunkard. 

You needn’t be proud of your face, for there is 
not one of you but that after ten days in the grave 
the worms would be eating your body. 

You must put off the mortal to put on immortality. 

Every time we overcome one temptation we get 
strength to overcome another. 

I honestly believe we are down here in school; in 
training; and if we cannot overcome we are not fit 
for God’s service. 

I am a joint heir with Jesus Christ, and you must 
find out how much He is worth in order to estimate 
my wealth. 


158 MR. MOODY’S CRISP SAYINGS. 


We are not only heirs but joint heirs, and all 
Christ has I have. 

What we want isa Christianity that goes into our 
homes and every-day lives. 

Some men’s religion just makes me sick. 

It is wrong for a man or woman to profess what 
they don’t possess. 

If you are not overcoming temptations, the world 
is overcoming you. 

Your ministers may preach like Gabriel on Sun- 
day, but that won’t do any good if you live like 
Satan during the week in your homes. 

There are a good many people who are delighted 
when you talk about the sins of the patriarchs, and 
other Bible characters, but when you come here and 
touch upon the sins of this city that is another thing. 

Did you ever notice that all but the heart of man 
praises God? Ifyou look right through history, you 
will find that everything but the heart of man obeys 
God. 

Now if you want to get near God, just obey Him. 

Obedience is a matter of the heart. 

He takes those into the nearest communion with 
Himself who just obey Him. 

The man or woman that is nearest to God is the 
man or woman that is just obeying Him. 

My dear friends, as long as we are living a dis- 
obedient life, we cannot do a thing to please God. 

What the Lord wants is not what you have got, 
but yourself, and you cannot doa thing to please 
God until you surrender yourself to Him. 

I believe the wretchedness and misery and woe in 
our American cities to-day comes from disobedience 
to God. 


MR. MOODY’S CRISP SAYINGS. 159 


There is a great reward in keeping God’s laws 
and statutes, but a great curse upon them that will 
disobey God. 

People don’t like to read legal documents; but if 
you are mentioned in the will it becomes instantlv | 
very interesting reading. 

If you haven’t any faith in a doctor, you don’t 
want him in the house, you wouldn’t commit the 
life of your child into his hands. 

Faith is the foundation of all social intercourse. 

You might as well ask a man to hear without ears, 
see without eyes, walk without feet, as to ask a man 
to believe without giving him something to believe. 

A creed is the road or street. It is very good as 
far as it goes but if it doesn’t take us to Christ it is 
worthless. 

I don’t believe any man is so constituted that he 
can not believe God if he wants to. 

Put your finger on a promise that God has made 
to man that he hasn’t kept, and then we will talk 
about not believing Him. 

When a man says he can not believe himself, but 
can believe in God, then he is on the right road. 

The trouble is, people who don’t know what the 
Bible says say they cannot believe it. 

There are a lot of people running around who 
haven’t got any roots. ; 

A good many people live on negations. They are 
always telling what they don’t believe. 

The best illustration of faith is a little child. She 
never bothers her head as to where she is going to 
get her breakfast or supper. 

I believe that faith grows like every other thing. 
You only have to water and feed it. 


160 MR. MOODY’S CRISP SAYINGS. 


There is nothing to hinder you from being saved 
but your own will. 

There are a great many people living on a few 
chapters and verses. They don’t take the whole of 
the Bible. 

You cannot touch Jesus Christ anywhere that 
there is not something supernatural about Him. 

I don’t like these gilt-edged Bibles that look like 
they had never been used. 

I earnestly believe that this old world has swung 
out in the cold and dark and will never swing back 
until the truth dawns upon it, that ‘‘God is love.”’ 

You take a man or woman and make them believe 
that there is no one in the wide world that loves or 
cares for them, and they would rather die than live. 
That is the class that commits suicide. 

The thing we prize above everything else in this 
world is love, and that is what God prizes above 
everything else. 

There isn’t a commandment that hasn’t come 
from the loving heart of God, and what He wants is 
to have us give up that which is going to mar our hap- 
piness in this life and the life to come. 

There is no book after all that will draw people 
like the Bible. 

Don’t get a Bible so good that you will be afraid 
to carry it for fear you will soil it. 

There are a great many people who know only 
what they hear from other people. 

A good way to study the Bible is to take one book 
atatime. Iknow some people who never sit down 
to read a book until they have time to read the 
whole of it. 

Justification is what turned Martin Luther inside 


MR. MOODY’S CRISP SAYINGS. 161 


out. The truth dawned upon him as he went up 
those stairs in Rome. 

I believe a man may come in here a thief and go 
out a saint. I believe a man may come in here as 
vile as Hell itself and go out saved. 

I honestly believe that the greatest mistake we 
are making in this country is that we don’t have 
more expository preaching. 

I never saw anyone that kept the Sabbath and 
reverenced God’s sanctuary who didn’t prosper. I 
have never seen a man desert the house, the law, or 
the statutes of God, but that he grew lean. 

I believe the reason so many people are having 
such hard times now is because they have wandered 
into sin. 

The kiss of Judas wounded the heart of the Son 
of God a good deal more than the Roman spear did. 

The wife that lets down the standard in order to 
reach her husband always loses ground. 

When you see a Christian minister making the 
ungodly people in his congregation his society, look 
out for him. 

When you see a man or woman in your church 
that would rather be with the ungodly than with 
God’s people look out for their piety. It isn’t skin 
deep. 

Did you ever think of the yards and yards of talk 
that you hear that doesn’t amount to anything? 

There are many Christians in the world about 
waist deep, and then they wonder why they haven’t 
any power or influence. 

Don’t let the werld get hold of you. Keep it 
under. 

Let every man use the talent God has given him. 


162 MR. MOODY'S CRISP SAYINGS. 


Don’t be mourning because you haven't more, 
but just take what you have and go to work. 

If you can reach aman by taking him to the Epis- 
copal church, take him to the Episcopal church. If 
you can reach him by taking him to the Baptist 
church, take him to the Baptist church. Never 
mind about the creeds and doctrines. Never mind 
about these names, they are nothing. What we 
want is to get him above these party walls. 

It is the work of the Holy Ghost to convict of sin. 

I have seen people who, when the spirit of God 
has been working mightily, would get up and go 
out and slam the door after them in a bad passion. 
Not a bad sign. 

A great many are always trying to make them- 
selves love God. You cannot doit. Love must be 
spontaneous. You cannot love by trying to make 
yourself love. 

You never in your life saw a man full of God who 
wasn't fullof Scripture. 

I don’t know what angel it was that got down to 
the plains to tell the shepherds that Christ had come, 
but I have an idea that it was Gabriel. 

I believe John Wesley did as much good as Charles. 
One preached and the other sung the gospel halfway 
around the world in a very short time. 

I don’t believe that any four walls are going to 
hold any man’s influence. 

I think one of the most lamentable things of this 
day is that Satan can walk right into some of our 
best Christian homes and families and haul the chil- 
dren down into the deepest and darkest depths, and 
we haven’t got the power to reach them and bring 
them back, 


MR. MOODY’S CRISP SAYINGS. 163 


A good many are trying to work with the anoint- 
ing they got many years ago. 

There are a lot of Samsons around who eve lost 
their hair. How many sermons have you heard of 
which you cannot remember a single word? 

When the Spirit of God is in a man the fire just 
burns. 

I have no sympathy with the idea if we ask God 
to do acertain work He is going to give us chaff in 
return. 

Sometimes when I have prayed it has seemed as 
if the Heavens were closed over me. 

I have often said I had rather be able to pray like 
Daniel than preach like Gabriel. 

I am sometimes ashamed of myself to think how 
fluent I am when I go into the presence of God. 
As if God was on an equal footing with me, or 
rather as if I was on an equal footing with God—as 
if there was no difference between us. 

One of the truest signs that a man is growing 
great is that God increases and he decreases. 

The next true element to prayer is restitution. 

It is folly for us to ask God to do something for 
us that we can do for ourselves. 

Let us look out that we are not one of the class 
who come to the Lord constantly for favors and 
never thank Him. 

This is one the sweetest promises Christ left for 
us. ‘‘Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose 
mind is stayed on Thee, because, he trusteth in 
Whee’ 

If I wanted to find a man who had rest I would 


not go among the very wealthy. 
10 


164 MR. MOODY'S CRISP SAYINGS. 


The man or woman that is looking after the last 
fashion doesn’t get rest to his soul. 

Some people go back into the past and rake up all 
the troubles they ever had, and then they look into 
the future and anticipate that they will have still 
more trouble, and then they go reeling and stagger- 
ing all through life. 

About the first thing a mother does is to teach 
her child to look. : 

I tell you I had rather have ten thousand enemies 
outside than one inside. 

The moment we begin to rob God then darkness 
and misery and wretchedness will come. 

It is very easy to talk about revivals, but do you 
know that there is not a denomination that hasn't 
sprung out of revivals? 

I venture to say there is many a church where 
four-fifths of the members were converted during 
revivals. 

I believe whenever you see a Christian man’s chil- 
dren turn out wrong, a good deal of the fault lies at 
his own door. 

There is one thing about a back-slider, he is 
always finding fault with church members. 

I will challenge you to find a father or mother 
that has back-slidden whose children haven’t gone 
to ruin. 

I think the hardest people to reach are the sons 
and daughters of back-sliders. 

That Pharisee that went up to the temple to pray 
with the poor publican, did he know anything about 
meekness? 


MR. MOODY’S CRISP SAYINGS. 165 


You put a man that has been living in wickedness 
and sin in the crystal pavement, and it would be 
Hell to him. 

You may look at your little innocent child, but 
remember that a separation is going tocome. If 
that child dies in early childhood, the Master will 
take it to Himself, and you will not be permitted to 
sit in the kingdom with that child until you are 
born again. 

When God speaks you and I can afford to listen. 

I pity any man that goes into the pulpit and picks 
that old Bible to pieces. 

I have noticed that when a man does begin to 
pick the Bible to pieces it doesn’t take him more 
than five years to tear it all to pieces. What is the 
use of being five years about what you can do in five 
minutes? 

Iam not here to defend the Bible. It will take 
care of itself. 

I want to say to any scoffer that has come in here 
to-day, you can laugh at that old Bible, you can 
scoff at your mother’s God, you can laugh at min- 
isters and Christians, but the hour is coming when 
one promise in that old book will be worth more to 
you than ten thousand worlds like this. 

It is an old saying, ‘‘Get the lamb and you will 
get the sheep.’’ I gave that up yearsago. Give 
me-the sheep and then I will have some one to nurse - 
the lambs. 

It has always been a mystery to me that a woman 
can turn against the Son of God, for there is not a 
country to-day where Christ is not preached where 
woman is not a slave or a toy. 

I said when I was in Jerusalem that if I had my 


166 MR. MOODY’S CRISP SAYINGS. 


choice, in a Mohammedan country, of being born a 
woman or a donkey I would rather be a donkey, for 
it is treated better than a woman. 

Every day you put it off you are going back from 
God, and are making it harder for you to be saved. 

Nations are only collections of individuals, and 
what is true of part in regard to character is always 
true of the whole. 

It is a great deal better to judge our own acts and 
confess them, than go through the worid with a 
curse upon us. 

It is not mere gush and sentiment this nation 
wants, so much as it is a revival of downright hon- 
esty. 

A man once said he had a good well, only it would 
dry up in summer and freeze up in winter. Some 
Christians are just like that well, good at certain 
times. 

It is doing a thousand times more harm than all 
the lectures of infidels to hear Christians say, **This 
and this isn’t inspired.’’ 

We want to believe the whole Bible. We want 
to take the whole of it, from Genesis to Revelation. 

I believe that for years after the death of Christ 
the air was full of the words which fell from His 
lips. 

I have a good deal of sympathy with that old col- 
ored woman who said if the Bible said Jonah swal- 
lowed the whale she would believe it; God could 
make a man large enough to swallow a whale. , 

The best way to convert an infidel is to take him 
to the prophecies fulfilled. 

I’m glad there are thingsin the Bible that I don't 
understand. If I could take that book up and read 


MR. MOODY'S CRISP SAYINGS. 167 


it as I would any other book, I might think I could 
write a book like that, and so could you. I’m glad 
there are heights I haven’t been able to climb up 
to. Iam glad there are depths I haven’t been able 
to fathom. It’s the best proof that the book came 
from God. 

I believe that God would have created a world 
rather than that any prophecy should be unfulfilled. 

Dozens of people have repented who don’t know 
what repentance is. 

Lots of people think repentance is going to strike 
them like lightning. 

I have learned that sometimes the medicine people 
don’t like to take may be the very best medicine for 
them. 

Lots of people think they can go to heaven ona 
good moral character. 

Look at the parable of the prodigal son. . I would 
rather be the younger brother than the other. The 
elder brother had: what the world calls a moral char- 
acter, and yet I think he was about: the meanest case 
in the whole Bible. 

I think the best book on Assurance is the first 
Epistle of John. 

For men who have nothing but essays it is hard to 
get pulpits, and it will be harder in years to come. 

The reason there are so many pulpits vacant is 
that there arn’t men enough willing to give the word 
of God. 

A great many churches have mere exhortations 
all the time, and it gets very tiresome. 

I don’t believe there is any place in the world 
where error has such a slim chance of getting a hold 
asin Scotland, The Scotch are a most wonderful 


168 MR. MOODY’S CRISP SAYINGS. 


people. You’ve got to be careful in preaching to 
them, or the first thing you know some old woman 
will come up with her Bible under her shawl, and_ 
say: ‘‘Here; you said soandso. The Bible says 
so and so.’’ If you make a misquotation, a Scotch- 
man will straighten you right up; but you might 
make forty misquotations in American churches and 
no one would know the difference. 

In Scotland a minister doesn’t think of preaching 
till everybody has found the text. 

If we had more of the word of God there would 
be fewer defalcations and scandals inside the 
church. 

It seems to me the time is coming when there 
should be a change in the churches of God in this 
land. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


TYPICAL ANECDOTES. 


The following are some of the anecdotes related 
by Mr. Moody at Cooper Union meeting, New 
York, November 20, 1896. 

A man went out of the jail at Chicago to go to 
Joliet to serve a seven years’ sentence, and a friend 
put a religious book into his hand, while he was in 
the jail at Chicago. Some time after he had gone to 
Joliet this friend visited him, and found that the 
cover of his little book was nearly worn off, and he 
had sewed it on with thread, and the book was pretty 
well worn out. His friend noticed that he had nine- 
teen names written on the back of the book, and he 
inquired ‘‘What have you got those names there for?”’ 
““Well,’’ the prisoner replied, “‘those are the names 
of prisoners who have read this book.’’ ‘‘But here 
is a cross against three of them; what does that 
mean?’’ said his friend. ‘‘Oh,’’ he said, ‘‘those are 
my brothers.’”’ ‘‘What do you mean by that?’’ 
““Well,’’ he said, “‘I read that book in the jail in 
Chicago and was converted, and I thought when I 
came down here I would try and get some more con- 
verts, and I have loaned that book to nineteen 
prisoners, and when any prisoner tells me he is con- 
verted, I put a cross against hisname.’’ Pretty good 
investment, wasit not? . The book cost less than ten 


cents. 169 


170 TYPICAL ANECDOTES. 


My son was speaking down at Brockton, Mass., 
the other Sunday. You see I have got him stirred 
up, and the secretary of the Christian Association 
said to him when the meeting was over, ‘‘ Perhaps 
you will be interested in something that occurred in 
our rooms a little while ago. A young man, quite 
a nice looking fellow, came in and wanted to know 
if I could not give him work. I told him I could riot. 
He was from out of town, and I thought if I could 
find work for anyone I ought to put it in the hands 
of some man of Brockton, and he turned away with 
a look on his face that kind of haunted me, and so I 
called him back and said: 

‘*Look here, my friend, you seem to be quite dis- 
appointed. I have some colporter’s books here. I 
want you to take them and go out on the street and 
try to sell them.’’ The young man colored up, and 
I said, ‘‘Do you mean that you are ashamed to sell 
those books?’’ He replied, ‘‘Oh, no; that very book 
you hold in your hand was given to me in jail, and 
it led me to Jesus Christ, and when I got out, I 
thought I would leave my own country and neigh- 
borhood and go among strangers and start life anew, 
and when I went to your place and saw the Christian 
Association, I thought maybe they could find some- 
thing for me to do, so that I could get among Chris- 
tian people.’’ So that young man took the books 
and went out on the street and sold them right and 
left, and a business man noticed him and liked the 
way he worked, and he hired him and gave him 
steady employment; so you see, my friends, it isa 
very good investment. 

Some Englishmen went to Africa a good many 
years ago to colonize. They came to a beautiful 


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TYPICAL ANECDOTES. 173 


spot, and thought it would be a good place to estab- 
lish a town, and after they had decided to stay there, 
they asked a native if there was plenty of rain there 
the year round. The native said no, that there 
were a few months in the year when everything 
dried up, so they thought that would not do, 
and they went on to another place that looked invit- 
ing, and they asked a native how it was there about 
the rain, and the native told them that in certain 
months everything dried up. Well, that would not 
do, and they went toa third place, and made the 
same inquiry, and the reply was that the clouds 
were pierced the year round and everything was 
beautiful and green, and the Englishmen decided to 
stay there, and they founded a town and flourished. 
So we want to keep right under the pierced clouds 
all the time. 

I remember the first time I went to California. I 
dropped down out of the Sierra Nevada mountains, 
where the snow was forty feet deep, into the Sacra- 
mento valley, where it was like midsummer, and I 
saw tranches that were perfectly beautiful, every- 
thing green and luxurious, and where everything 
seemed to be flourishing, but sometimes right across 
a fence I would see another ranch where there was 
nothing green and everything seemed to have dried 
up. I said to a gentleman in the train, “‘I do not 
understand this, what does it mean? There isa 
ranch that is green and flourishing, and there is an- 


>) 
other that has nothing green about it. It looks dried 
up.’’ ‘‘Oh,’’ said he, ‘‘you are a stranger here.’’ 
I said, ‘*Yes, that was my first visit.’’ ‘‘Well,’’ he 
said, ‘“‘that man there irrigates and brings the water 


down from the mountains, and in consequence he 


174 TYPICAL ANECDOTES. 


_ Taises two or three crops a year, while the man that 
owns the other ranch, does not raise hardly any- 
thing, because he does not irrigate.’’ In many 
churches you will find men and women as dry as 
Gideon’s fleece. Some people will come and go and 
occupy the same pew for forty years and not move 
an inch. Another man right close to him is active 
and bright, and everything he touches seems to 
grow; the breath of God seems to be upon him. 

When I was a young man and preached out in the 
West—I was a commercial traveler then—I would 
go into a little town and hold a meeting in a log 
schoolhouse, when some old gentleman would say, 
‘‘This young brother from Chicago will speak here 
this evening at early candle light,’’ and the first 
person that came would bring an old dingy lantern 
and stick it up on a bench—even an old lantern with 
old oil and a wick, you know, gives out consider- 
able light after all on a dark night—and the next 
person that came, an old woman, perhaps, would 
bring along a sperm candle, and then would come 
an old farmer with another candle, and they would 
stick them up on the desks, and they would sputter 
away there, yet all the time giving a good deal of 
light, and do you know, by the time the people got 
together there in that old school house we had plenty 
of light. Now, it can be just so here in New York; 
there are Christians enough here to light up the 
whole city. 

You remember that it was revealed to Elijah that 
he should be caught up into heaven. He was with 
Elisha at Gilgal, and he said to Elisha, ‘‘Let us go 
to Bethel and see how the prophets are getting 
along.’’ They had a sort of theological seminary 


TYPICAL ANECDOTES. 1% 


down there, -as it were. Well, Elijah and Elisha 
went to Bethel, and I suppose their arrival created 
no small stir among those young prophets, for it had 
been revealed to them that Elijah was to be taken 
away, and one of them got Elisha off alone, as I can 
imagine, and whispered to him, ‘‘Do you know that 
your man is to be taken away?’’ “‘Sh! sh! hold your 
peace,’’ said Elisha, ‘‘I know all about it.’’ Pres- 
ently, Elijah said to Elisha, ‘‘You stay here now, 
and I’ll go down to Jericho and see how the prophets 
are getting along there,’’ for there was another the- 
ological seminary down there, but Elisha would not 
let him go alone, and went with him. When they 
got down there, another prophet got Elisha to one 
side and said, ‘‘Do you know that Elijah is to be 
taken away?’ ‘‘Yes, I know all about it,’’ said Eli- 
sha; ‘‘keep still, do not say anything.” Presently, 
Elijah turned to Elisha and said, ‘‘Elisha, you stay 
here with the prophets, and I will go over to the 
Jordan and worship.’’ Elisha said, ‘“‘As the Lord 
liveth and as I live, you will not go without me.’’ 
He tried to leave him up there at Bethel, and he 
would not be left, and I can imagine him locking 
arms with Elijah and going along with him, as they 
started to the Jordan together. I was in Palestine 
some time ago, and oh, how I longed to see the 
very spot where those two men crossed the Jordan; 
as they passed along down the valley and came to 
the river, Elijah took off his mantle and waved it, 
and the waters began to recede on either side of 
them and piled up higher and higher, and they 
stepped down into the bed of the river and crossed, 
and climbed up the bank on the eastern side, and 
‘passed out into the desert. And by-and-by the two 


176 TYPICAL ANECDOTES. 


men disappeared. I had wished that-their whole 
conversation had been put on record, but, alas, there 
came a whirlwind which caught up the sand and dirt 
and drove it into their eyes, and the two men got 
separated, but before they were separated, Elijah 
turned to Elisha and said, ‘‘Whatisit that you want?”’ 
I tried to leave you back there at Bethel, but you 
would not stay. Make your petition known. What- 
ever you ask I will grant it.’’ I think if some of our 
millionaires in New York should ask me to make my 
petition known to them, that they would grant it, 
I would draw on them for enough money to support 
my schools at Northfield. I would not be afraid to 
make my petitiori known, and I would get a big 
draft. 

But, as I said, this whirlwind separated the two 
men. The Master was going to take Elijah away, 
and I can imagine Elisha getting the sand and dust 
out of his eyes and exclaiming, ‘‘Where is my mas- 
ter?” and looking in all directions for him, and sud- 
denly he looked up and saw a flame of fire , and he 
cried out, ‘‘My Father, my Father,’’ and ‘“‘the cha- 
riot of Israel and the horsemen thereof.’’ Elijah 
remembered his promise as Elisha called to him, 
and he took off his mantle and threw it back, and 
Elisha took off his old mantle and rent it. 

When Mr. Moody was asked at the last service in 
Cooper Union whether he was satisfied with his 
New York campaign, he replied: ‘‘Satisfied, I am 
not satisfied. I did not come to New York to reach 
sinners, but to reach Christians. I wish them to 
live on a higher plane, to be comforted to the image 
of Christ. If that result has not been reached, my 
work here will be of little avail, and the result will 


TYPICAL ANECDOTES. 177 


soon pass away like acloud.’’ For five weeks Mr. 
Moody preached twice a day, five days in the week 
in Cooper Union, to audiences which taxed the re- 
sources of that large hall to its utmost seating capa- 
city, and sometimes its standing capacity. In addi- 
tion to these meetings, he preached every Sunday in 
November and December in Carnegie Music Hall. 

‘‘Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.’’ 
Now, I come to the Sunday newspapers. I would 
not touch a Sunday newspaper any more than I 
would touch tar. If there are any attacks on me 
next Sunday I won’t see them, for if anyone sends 
me a Sunday newspaper, I always tear it up. Noth- 
ing is doing more damage to the church and God 
than the Sunday newspaper. The papers abuse 
Tammany, but Tammany never did one-fourth as 
much harm in this city as have the Sunday newspa- 
pers. There are about twenty-five thousand divorces 
every year in the United States. Many of them are 
directly due to the Sunday newspapers, which pub- 
lish accounts of divorces in all their details. The 
Sunday newspapers are responsible for many sui- 
cides and murders. All the theaters in Chicago are 
open on Sunday, as the result of the Sunday news- 
papers. In Chicago men are knocked down and 
robbed in open daylight. Murders occur every 
day. Masked men go into stores and rob them. 
There is not a divorce case which is full of filth, 
there is not a case of adultery which the Sunday 
newspapers do not rake up and publish. The Angel 
Gabriel could not be heard by the Sunday newspaper 
readers. Now, how many will swear that they will 
never again read a Sunday newspaper? 


Once on a battlefield, Napoleon’s horse became 
12 


178 TYPICAL ANECDOTES. 


frightened, and a private jumped from the ranks 
~ and grasped the bridle and quieted him. Napoleon 
looked at the soldier and said, ‘*Thank you, cap- 
tain.’’ ‘‘Of what company, sire?’’ asked the soldier. 
With a moment’s ‘hesitation, ‘‘The life guards,’’ 
said Napoleon. The soldier went at once to the life 
guards and placed himself at the head of the com- 
pany. The officers were going to put him under 
arrest; but he told them he was captain. ‘*Who 
said so?’’ demanded the officers. ‘‘He said so,’’ 
replied the soldier, pointing to Napoleon. If God 
says a thing in this book, you lay hold of it and be- 
lieve without question. 

There is a man living in this city, who has a home 
on the Hudson river. His daughter and her family 
went to spend the winter with him, and in the course 
of the season the scarlet fever broke out. One little 
girl was put in quarantine, to be kept separate from 
the rest. Every morning the old grandfather used to 
go upstairs and bid his grandchild good-bye before 
going to his business. On one of these occasions the 
little thing took him by the hand, and leading him 
to a corner of the room, without saying a word, she 
pointed to the floor where she had arranged some 
crackers, so they would spell out ‘‘Grandpa, I want 
a box of paints.’’ He said nothing. On his return 
he hung up his overcoat, and went to the room as 
usual, when his little grandchild, without looking to 
see if her wish had been complied with, took him to 
the same corner where he spelled out in the same 
way, ‘‘Grandpa, I thank you for the box of paints.”’ 
Don’t you think the old gentleman was pleased with 
the faith his little grandchild had in him? 

I had a large Sunday-school in Chicago with twelve 


TYPICAL ANECDOTES. 179 


or fifteen hundred scholars. I was very much pleased 
with the numbers. If the attendance kept up, I was 
pleased, but I didn’t see aconvert. I was not look- 
ing for conversions. There was one class in a corner 
of the large hall made up of young women, who 
caused more trouble than any other class in the 
school. There was only one man who could ever 
manage that class and keep it in order. If he could 
keep the class quieted, it was about as much as we 
could hope for. One day this teacher was missing, 
and I taught the class. The girls laughed in my 
face. I never felt so tempted to turn anyone from 
Sunday-school as those girls; never saw such frivol- 
ous girls. I couldn’t make any impression on them. 
The next day the teacher came into the store. I 
noticed that he looked very pale, and I asked him 
what was the trouble. ‘‘I have been bleeding at the 
lungs,’’ he said, ‘‘and the doctor said I cannot live. 

I must give up my class and go back to my wid- 
owed mother in New York State.’’ As he spoke, 
his chin quivered, and the tears began to fall. I 
said I was sorry, and added, “‘You are not afraid of 
death, are you?’’ ‘‘Oh, no, I am not afraid to die; 
but I shall soon stand before my Master. What 
shall I tell Him of my class. Not one of them isa 
Christian. I have made a failure of my work.’’ 

I have never heard anyone speak in that way, 
and I said, ‘‘Why not visit every girl and ask her to 
become a Christian?’ ‘‘I am very weak,”’ he said, 
“too weak to walk.'’ I offered to take a carriage 
and go with him. He consented, and we started 
out. Going first to one house and then to another, 
the pale teacher sometimes leaning on my arm, he 
saw each girl, and calling her by name, Mary, or 


180 TYPICAL ANECDOTES. 


Martha, or whatever it was, he asked her to become 
a Christian, telling her he was going home to die, 
and that he wanted to know that his scholars had 
given their hearts to God. Then he would pray 
with her, and I would pray with her; so we went 
from house to house, and after he used up all his 
strength, I would take him home, and the next day 
we would go out again. Sometimes he went alone. 
At the end of ten days he came to the store, his face 
beaming with joy. ‘‘The last girl has yielded her 
heart to Christ. I am going home to New York. 
I have done all that I can do, and my work is done.’’ 

I asked when he was going, and he said, *‘To- 
morrow night.’’ Isaid, ‘‘Would you like to see 
your class together before you go?” He said he 
would, and I asked if he thought the landlady would 
allow the use of her sitting-room. He thought she 
would. So I sent word to all the girls, and they all 
came together. I had never spent such a night up 
to that time. I had never met such a large number 
of young converts. The teacher gave an earnest 
talk, and then prayed, and then I prayed. AsI 
was about to rise, I heard one of the girls begin to_ 
pray. She prayed for her teacher, and she prayed 
for the superintendent. Up to that time I never 
knew that anyone prayed for me in that way. 
When she had finished, another girl prayed. Before 
we arose, every girl had prayed. What a change 
had come over them in a short space of time. We 
tried to sing, but did not get on very well. We 
bade one another good-bye, but I felt that I must 
see the teacher again before he left Chicago, and so 
I met him at the station, and while we were talking, 
one of the girls came along, and then another, until 


TYPICAL ANECDOTES. 181 


the whole class had assembled. They were all there 
on the platform. It was a beautiful summer night. 
The sun was just setting down behind the western 
prairies. It was a sight I shall never forget. A 
few gathered around us—the fireman, engineer, 
brakeman and conductor on the train, and some of 
the passengers lifted their windows as the class 
sang together— 


“Here we meet to part again, 
But when we meet on Canaan’s shore, 
There'll be no parting there.”’ 


As the train moved out of the station, the pale- 
faced teacher stood on the platform, and with his 
finger pointing heavenward, said, ‘*I will meet you 
there.’’ Then the train disappeared from view. 


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CHAPTER XV. 


MR. MOODY’S BIBLE. 


Mr. Moody’s Bible was a spectacle indeed, marked, 
underscored, much of it defaced with hieroglyphics, 
ragged with incessant use, but only one of many. 
He was always wearing out bibles or filling their 
margins and passing them on. It was a treasure, 
indeed, for many to get hold of these and one was 
welcome if they would give as much as they would 
take. 

Great interleaved Bibles are now in cir- 
culation, to which he had contributed many of his 
gleanings from the stores of observation and 
research, but he expected them to come back with 
additions from those who had had the loan. And 
he was quick to lay hold of any fresh point or strik- 
ing illustration to incorporate in the address which 
he was always engaged in preparing, re-modeling 
or adding to. His process of sermon manufacture 
was very original. There was something automatic 
about it. The basis for each sermon was a big 
envelope, labeled Repentance, Faith, Peter, Zac- 
cheus, the Elder Son; into this envelope he put 
clippings from papers, extracts from books, illustra- 
tions and incidents, scraps of all kinds, which were 
more or less connected with the subject. When 
this process had continued for some time, he went 

183 


184 MR. MOODY’S BIBLE. 


through the mass of accumulation, rejecting some, 
laying hold of some, fitting it into a connecting 
whole. Of this he took a few jottings in a large 
hand to the pulpit or platform. The process of look- 
ing through the envelope was constantly repeated 
so the points that had been overlooked were brought 
to his mind, fresh illustrations introduced and the 
entire subject was entered anew in all its lights. 
This secured freshness of delivery, and preserved 
him from the monotony of perpetual repetition. 


DEATH OF MR. MOODY’S MOTHER. 


Betsey Holton Moody, the mother of the great 
evangelist, died at her home in Northfield, January 
26, 1896, aged ninety-one years. She left to mourn 
her loss four sons and three daughters. 

Mr. Moody made an address at her funeral and it 
was the more remarkable, because he told not only 
of her love and patience, but also of her stern dis- 
cipline. ‘‘She was so loving a nrother,’’ he said, 
“that when we were away we were always glad to 
get back. But Inevershall forget her old-fashioned 
whippings. I believe in them to-day.’’ He also 
spoke of her way of making all her boys go to 
church. Hewasstrongly of the impression that the 
teachings which he imbibed in those early days, in a 
great measure, influenced his subsequent life. 

Mr. Moody’s mother was buried in a large plat of 
ground contiguous to the cemetery. It was always 
kept beautifully filled in with flowers placed there 
by a young man at the special instigation of Mr. 
Moody. Mr, Moody, inthe summer after her death, 


MR. MOODY’S BIBLE. 185 


when standing by her grave with her friends, said: 
“‘She made home so pleasant. I thought so much 
of my mother and cannot say half enough. The 
dear face, there was no sweeter face on earth. Fifty 
years I have been coming back and was always glad 
to get back. WhenI got within fifty miles of home 
I always grew restless and walked up and down the 
car. It seemed as if the train would never get to 
Northfield. For sixty-eight years she lived on that 
hill, and when I came back after dark I always 
looked to see the light of my mother’s window. It 
was because she made our home so happy that she 
started me thinking how to make homes happy for 
others, and when God took mother he gave me 
these little children. Here is one century that is 
passed. And here is the century that’s coming,’’ 
and with this he beckoned for the little babes and 
other children who were on hand in their mother’s 
arms, and they were brought into the circle and 
dedicated to God in united prayers. 


MOODY MEETS MISS WILLARD. 


Miss Frances E. Willard, the celebrated temper- 
ance advocate, was identified with Mr. Moody in 
several of his meetings. Miss Willard said that she 
would never forget a stormy Sabbath day early in 
1877 when through a blinding snow 9,ooo women 
gathered at the Tabernacle in Chicago to hear a ser- 
mon especially for them, from what she termed the 
most successful evangelistic of the Christian era. 
It was then she and Mr. Moody met for the first 
time and he asked her to lead the meeting in prayer. 
She said she never beheld a more impressive scene. 


186 MOODY’S BIBLE. 


At the close of the meeting in January of that year 
Mr. Moody sent for Miss Willard to come to his 
hotel, and he asked her to accompany him to Boston 
and help in the women’s meeting there. She said 
she would be glad to do so, but that she wanted to 
consult her mother about it. He asked her what 
her means of support were and she told him that her 
expenses were paid by the W. C-: T. U. while she 
worked for them, but that if she should devote her 
time to revival meetings even that source of income 
would cease. Mr. Moody suggested that they pray 
for light; this they did and the interview ended. 
Her mother liked the plan and early in February 
she took up her work in Boston and devoted consid- 
erable time each morning to the study of the Bible. 

One day as Miss Willard was about to open her 
new meeting in the Burkley Street Church, Mr. 
Moody came rushing up the steps and said that he 
had heard that she had been talking temperance all 
around the suburbs. He asked her why she did this 
and stated that he wanted her attention to the Bos- 
ton meeting. She replied that she had no money 
and that it was necessary that she should go out 
- and earn some. Moody seemed perplexed and 
wanted to know whether he had given her nothing. 
She replied that he had not. He then wanted to know 
if certain people had not paid her way from Chicago 
and sent her money for traveling expenses. She 
said that they had not. Moody said that he guessed 
that they had forgotten it and rushed away. That 
night when she was going to a meeting he thrust a 
generous check in her hand. 

Miss Willard continued throughout the Boston 
meeting, and then devoted herself to other work. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


THE KANSAS CITY MEETING. 


On November 15, 1899, Mr. Moody told the min- 
isters who were associated with him in the revival 
which he was holding in the great Convention Hall 
at Kansas City, that he was nearly exhausted, and 
that he must have rest, and that he would not lead 
the after-meetings in the church as had been his 
custom previously. Mr. Moody had been holding 
revival services in Kansas City for some weeks, and 
they had been remarkably successful. The great 
effort, however, in speaking in an immense hall, 
was too much for his years and strength. The next 
day a physician was called after he left the hall, and 
went to his hotel, and the next evening he an- 
nounced himself very much better; he said he did 
not know just what was the matter with him, but 
that he was under the impression that he had a lit- 
tle cold and a little touch of malaria, but that he was 
being brought around all right. Heconcluded that 
in order to cure himself that he would only hold two 
meetings.each day in Convention Hall. The morn- 
ing and afternoon prayer-meeting and the after 
meetings, all of which were held in the Second 
Presbyterian church, were led by someone else; 
Mr. Moody was not present. In four days that 
week some three hundred people had expressed 

187 


188 THE KANSAS CITY MEETING. 


their intention of becoming Christians. The names 
and addresses of all the converts were taken, with 
their church preferences, if any, and these facts 
were to determine who should look after them until 
they were safely landed in the right path and to be | 
able to see their own way to salvation. 

On the 17th of November, for the first time in 
forty years as a preacher-evangelist, Mr. Moody was 
obliged to give up and leave ameeting. Mr. Moody 
found himself worse on Friday morning, and he kept 
getting worse, until, by noon, his physician, Dr. E. W. 
Schauffler, found his patient becoming so weak that 
he informed him that it would not be advisable for 
him to preach at the afternoon meeting. Mr. Moody 
held out until the last moment, hoping his strength 
would revive, but finally was reluctantly compelled 
to coincide with his physician in his views. 

As the morning wore on, Mr. Moody’s friends saw 
that he kept growing weaker, and it was not long 
before Mr. Moody himself decided that he must do 
what he had never done before in his life, abandon 
a series of meetings before its close, and go as soon 
as possible to his home in Northfield, Mass. It 
almost broke his heart to carry out such a decision, 
but his rapidly waning strength warned him that he 
should be at home where he could have the cheer- 
ing and reviving influences which would come to 
him from the ministrations of his wife and family. 

Accordingly, arrangements were made for the 
journey by the road which would get him to his 
home in as short a time and in as comfortable a 
manner as possible. No special or private car in 
the city being available at that time, Mr. and Mrs. 
Neil, the evangelists, tendered the use of their gos- 


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THE KANSAS CITY MEETING. 191 


pel car, ‘“‘The Messenger of Peace.’’ This was 
accepted, and it was attached to the Wabash train. 
Mr. Moody left Kansas City at 9.15 o’clock on the 
night of November 17th for the long journey to his 
home, going by way of St. Louis and Buffalo. Mrs. 
Neil accompanied the car to assist in nursing the 
sick man, who was also accompanied by Dr. Robert 
Schauffler, who, with his father, had been attending 
Mr. Moody, and by Mr. Charles M. Vining, teller of 
_ the Union National Bank, who went at Mr. Moody’s 
special request, Mr. Vining having been a classmate 
and intimate friend of Mr. Moody’s son at college. 
Mr. Moody’s friends say that he had shown much 
physical weakness since his arrival at Kansas City, 
and there had been a rapid running down in his 
condition, and to this they attributed the fact that 
he had seemed to fail to get the hold upon his audi- 
ences which was usual with him. 

His talks had appeared to lack the power and con- 
vincing energy to which those who had heard him 
frequently were accustomed, still there had been a 
great awakening among religious people, and quick- 
ening of the spirit, which had resulted in great good 
to the church. The foundation had been laid upon 
which great revivals in the individual churches 
could be raised, while the way had been opened for 
successful evangelical meetings, as they had been 
previously advertised in nearly all the churches in 
the city. The direct results in actual converts at 
the meetings, however, had not been nearly so large 
as was usual in his meetings. 

Mr. Moody himself, nevertheless, did not appear 
to have any fears but that he would be able to go 


on with his evangelistic meetings after a few days. 
11 


192 THE KANSAS CITY MEETING. 


He regretted very much to leave the Kansas City 
meetings, and he cancelled an engagement which 
he had for beginning a series of meetings at Roches- 
ter, N. Y., on the following Wednesday. 

He said that it was not the speaking in the hall 
there that had brought on his illness. The speak- 
ing, he said, did not specially tire him, as he felt no 
pain or difficulty while preaching. It was in walk- 
ing back and forth from Convention Hall to the , 
Coates House, where he stopped, that he felt pain 
and difficulty in breathing. 

Mr. Moody thought of the meetings up to the time 
he left, sending a special word over to the evening 
meetings, thanking the choir for their services, and 
asking all to continue under the arrangement 
whereby the meetings were to continue on to the 
next Sunday evening as planned. He also thanked 
the ministers for the cordial support they had given 
him, and the reporters for their work, saying he had 
never held meetings in a city where the newspapers 
had reported his meetings with more appreciation 
and cordiality. 

Mr. Moody’s last sermon was on the night of No- 
vember 16th, was on the parable of a certain man 
who made a great feast and invited his friends, but 
when these friends all sent their regrets, he went 
out into the streets and invited everybody, and into 
the hedge rows and compelled people to come, de- 
claring meanwhile that they who had been invited 
and refused to come should not taste of his feast. 

Mr. Moody took up the excuses of those who 
refused to go to the feast, and showed how frivolous 
they were. The man who had just bought a piece 
of land surely knew what it was before he bought 


THE KANSAS CITY MEETING. 193 


it. So with the oxen and the man who married— 
his bride would undoubtedly have been glad to go 
to the king’s banquet. 

““These excuses do look pretty foolish now when I 
hold them up to you,’’ said Mr. Moody, “‘but I have 
an invitation to-night to all of you to attend a royal 
feast—the marriage supper of the Lamb—and your 
excuses for not coming are even more frivolous and 
false. 

*‘Men at the present time are about all making 
excuses. The habit is as old as Adam. Adam made 
a mean, contemptible excuse; said it was his wife; 
he even threw the blame back upon God, and said, 
‘This woman that Thou gavest me.’ But men all 
have excuses. They have not the moral courage to 
say they don’t want to go tothe feast; they lay 
awake nights to make up excuses, and if I were to 
tear up every excuse that you have here to-night 
and then jump down off this platform and ask the 
first man down there, he would have a new excuse 
ready. ‘I tell you excuses are the devil’s cradles to 
rock souls off to sleep in.’’ 

Mr. Moody then took up the excuses men most 
frequently give for not becoming Christians. “* ‘The 
Bible is not true,’ they say. They criticise the Bible 
who have never read it, never study it, don’t know 
anything about it. Some say, ‘I don’t know asI 
have been foreordained to be saved’; others stay 
out because ‘there are so many hypocrites in the 
church.’ ”’ 

Said Mr. Moody: ‘‘I’ll find a hundred hypocrites 
in the world to where you will find one in the 
Church. Of course, there are hypocrites in the 
church—the tares and the wheat grow up together; 


104 THE KANSAS CITY MEETING. 


but if you stay out of church because there are 
hypocrites in it, why don’t you quit your business 
because there are hypocrites in that? Are youa 
grocer? There are folks in this country who grind 
marble up in the sugar.. Are youa lawyer? Are 
there any hypocrites among the lawyers? Are you 
a doctor? Are there any quacks among the doctors? 
Are you a Republican? Are there any hypocrites 
there? Or a Democrat? ‘But,’ you say, ‘I don’t 
belong to either; I am a Prohibitionist.’ Are there 
any hypocrites among the prohibition parties? 

“‘Oh, Iam about tired and sick of people trying to 
live on the faults of others; you can’t get very fat 
on that; look out for the men who are always howl- 
ing about hypocrites; they are hypocrites them- 
selves.” 

Other excuses which were given were treated very 
much in the same manner by the speaker, who 
finally said that there were two excuses which were 
more universal than any, but which are seldom 
avowed. ‘‘One is the lack of moral courage,’’ said 
he; ‘‘they area pack of cowards waiting to enter 
the kingdom of God if they would act up to their 
convictions. The other excuse is sin. People have 
some sin possibly they do not want people to know 
about, but they don’t want to give that sin up as 
they would have to do if they became Christians.” 

Mr. Moody closed by stating that if an excuse was 
written out by one of the reporters asking God, “‘I 
pray Thee have more excuses from the marriage 
feast,’’.that no one in the house would sign it, but 
those who go out of the house without accepting the 
invitation virtually do the same thing. If the note 
was written to go to God direct, ‘‘I will be there,’’ 


THE KANSAS CITY MEETING. 195 


all would want to sign it. ‘‘Now,’’ said the preacher, 
‘how many will accept this invitation? How many 
will say, ‘I will?’ ’”’ 

Half a dozen, scattered through the audience, re- 
sponded, and as Mr. Moody repeated the request, 
there was as many more that had been stirred to 
the heart by his resistless logic, and as he said, “‘I 
will wait afew moments longer to see if any one 
else, any man, woman or child, will say the word. 
I could stand here all night and listen to those ‘I 
wills.’ ” 

The responses came from all parts of the great 
hall until about half a hundred had responded to 
the invitation held out by Mr. Moody. 

Mr. Moody arrived in St. Louis the next day, and 
after partaking of a hearty breakfast at the Union 
Station, continued his journey home. In the morn- 
ing he sent the following telegram to the Conven- 
tion Hall meeting at Kansas City: ‘“‘I thank the 
good people of Kansas City for all their kindness to 
me. Had best night in a week. Heart stronger 
and temperature nearly normal.” 

Mr. Moody reached Northfield, Sunday, the roth. 

His wife and son, William R. Moody, had gone to 
Buffalo to meet him, but as he did not stop in Buf- 
falo, they missed each other. He went to Greenfield 
over the Fitchburg road, where he was met by his 
youngest son, Paul, with a pair of horses, and was 
at once driven over the country roads to East North- 
field, twelve miles away. The ride apparently did 
Mr. Moody much good, and he expressed himself as 
greatly pleased at having reached his home. 

He sent the following telegram, which was read 
at the opening of the last meeting of the revival in 


196 THE KANSAS CITY MEETING. 


Kansas City that night to ten thousand people: 
‘‘East Northfield, Mass., November 19th. Have 
reached here safely; have traveled back and forth 
for forty years, and never felt better. Regret 
heartily that I had to leave Kansas City. Had I 
been there to-night, I would have preached on ‘They 
are not far from the Kingdom.’ My prayer is, that 
many be led into the kingdom under Mr. Torrey’s 
preaching. I want to thank the good people of 
Kansas City for their kindness and prayers. Dr. 
Robert Schauffler and Mr. Vining have been of 
great help, and I appreciate your kindness in send- 
ing them.’’ (Signed.) Dwicut L. Moopy. 


‘CHAPTER XVII. 


DEATH OF MOODY. 


With the words ‘‘God is calling me,’”’ Dwight L. 
Moody, the evangelist, whose fame was world wide, 
fell asleep in death, at his home in East Northfield, 
Mass., at noon, December 22, 1899. The passing of 
his spirit from a body which had been tortured with 
pain for some weeks, to the rest beyond, was as 
gentle as could be wished for. His family were 
gathered at his bedside, and the dying man’s last 
moments were spent in comforting them and in 
contemplation of that reward for which he had so 
long and earnestly labored. He knew that death 
Was near, but its sting to him was lost in the un- 
folding to his mental vision of a beautiful scene, 
judging from his last words. 

The gathering of the family around the bedside 
of the great evangelist was a scene that will be re- 
ferred to many times in years to come, as Mr. 
Moody’s work is carried forward. Besides the fam- 
ily there were present also Drs. Schofield and Woods, 
and the nurse. 

During the night, Mr. Moody had a number of 
sinking spells. He was, however, kindness itself 
to those about him. At two o’clock in the morning 
Dr. N. P. Wood, the family physician, who spent 


the night in the house, was called at the request of 
197 


198 DEATH OF MOODY. 


Mr. Moody. He was perspiring, and he requested» 
his son-in-law, A. P. Fitt, who spent the night with 
him, to call the physician that he might note the 
symptoms. Dr. Wood administered a hypodermic 
injection of strychnia. This caused the heart to 
perform its duties more regularly, and Mr. Moody 
himself requested his son-in-law, Mr. Fitt, and Dr. 
Wood to retire. Mr. Moody’s eldest son, Will R. 
Moody, who had been sleeping the first of the night, 
spent the last half with his father. 

At 7.30 in the morning Dr. Wood was called, and 
when he reached Mr. Moody's room found his 
patient in a semi-conscious condition. When Mr. 
Moody recovered consciousness, he said, with all his 
eld vivacity: 

‘“What’s the matter; what’s going on here?”’ 


Some member of the family replied: ‘Father, 
you haven’t been quite so well, and so we came in to 
see you.’’ 


A little later he said to his boys: ‘‘I have always 
been an ambitious man, not ambitious to lay up 
wealth, but toleave you work to do.’’ In substance 
Mr. Moody urged his two boys and his son-in-law, 
Mr. Fitt, to see that the schools in East Northfield, 
at Mt. Hermon and the Chicago Bible institute should 
receive their best care. This they assured Mr. 
Moody they would do. 

During the forenoon, Mrs.A. P. Fitt, his daughter, 
said to him: ‘‘Father, we can’t spare you.’’ Mr, 
Moody’s reply was: ‘I’m not going to throw my 
life away. If God has more work for me to do, I'll 
not die.”’ 

As the noonday hour drew near the watchers at 
the bedside noted the approach of death. Several 


DEATH OF MOODY. 199 


times his lips moved as if in prayer, but the articula- 
tion was so faint that the words could not be heard. 
Just as death came Mr. Moody awoke as if from 
slumber, and said with much joyousness: 

‘‘T see earth receding; heavenisopening. God is 
calling me.”’ 

Anda moment later he had entered upon what 
one of his sons described as ‘‘a triumphal march 
into heaven.”’ 

Dr. Wood says that Mr. Moody did not have the 
slightest fear of death. He was thoroughly con- 
scious until within less than a minute of his death. 
Dr. Wood says the cause of his death was heart fail- 
ure. He adds that the walls surrounding the heart 
grew weaker and weaker. While it is true that Mr. 
Moody had symptoms of Bright’s disease a few days 
ago, his death was due, the physician says, to dila- 
tion of the heart. There had been dilation in a 
gradual way for the past nine years. The family 
had been told some time ago that Mr. Moody might 
get out and about, but still he was liable to drop 
away at any time. 

There were present in Mr. Moody’s chamber when 
he died his wife, his daughter, Mrs. A. P. Fitt, and 
her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Will R. Moody, Paul 
Moody, the youngest son; Dr. N. P. Wood and Miss 
Powers, the nurse. Mrs. Moody had carried herself 
during the sickness of her husband with the greatest 
bravery and patience, but when death came she was 
prostrated. As soon as Mr. Moody’s death became 
known in the village the utmost sorrow was shown. 

The death of Mr. Moody was not unexpected, 
although his temporary recovery from illness was 
hoped for, not only by his friends near at hand, but 

12 


200 DEATH OF MOODY. 


by those who had listened to his words and teachings 
on both continents. In the family there was fear 
that death was not a long way off. The cause of 
death was a general breaking down of his health, 
due to overwork. His constitution was that of an 
exceedingly strong man, but his untiring labors 
had gradually undermined his vitality until that 
most delicate of organs, the heart, showed signs of 
weakness. 

Mr. Moody’s exertions in the West during the 
month of November brought on the crisis, and the 
collapse came during the series of meetings at Kan- 
sas City. An early diagnosis by eminent physicians 
made it evident that Mr. Moody’s condition was 
serious and cancelling his engagements he returned 
to his home in East Northfield, so near the greatest 
achievements of his later life. 

On reaching his home the family physician, Dr. 
N. P. Wood, took charge of Mr. Moody, and for 
some days bulletins as to the patient’s condition 
were issued, all having an encouraging tone, seem- 
ingly, but unerringly pointing to the fact that the 
evangelist’s work on earth was about finished. 
During the week previous to the one in which his 
death occurred, a change for the worst prepared 
immediate friends for what was to come. 

In the last week, however, the patient improved 
steadily, until the day before his death, when he 
appeared very nervous. This symptom was accom- 
panied by weakness, which much depressed the 
family, who were anxiously watching the sufferer. 

Mr. Moody’s failing health, or, rather, his appre- 
ciation that he must guard the vitalities of his life, 
unless he wished to have his work cut short even 


DEATH OF MOODY. 2U1 


before it was, came when he was in England some 
years ago, when physicians cautioned him. And it 
appeared that he took some heed, but the zeal that 
was in him must find its outlet, and his ceaseless 
work had done the rest. 

At Kansas City, after beginning a short series of 
meetings there, he found that the hand of prostra- 
tion, if nothing more, was laid upon him, and he 
returned to his home to rest and recover. The physi- 
cians and specialists had offered encouragement, 
but coupled it with the reservation that, with his 
vitality impaired by such excessive calls upon it, 
there was achance that he might recover and be 
ready for more work. They felt, in the light of the 
great efforts of the past, it could not be told with 
surety that this favorable turn would come. The 
end came and the great man passed from earth. 

Mr. Moody made, in his will, provision for his 
wife, but the sons receive a legacy of their father’s 
work to continue, and they modestly say they look 
upon it with some tremulousness, realizing that the 
mighty will and intense personality of their father is 
absent. However, the school work at which Mr. 
W. R. Moody is practically the head as representing 
his father’s plans and ideas will be continued. The 
outside work they make no pretense of repeating. 
From many sources Mr. Moody received large sums 
of money, and, after the devotion of it to the school 
work, where so directed, was careful and prudent 
with the rest. On his own account, he acquired 
large sums, too, and, after proper provision for his 
home and those nearest him, he gave the rest to his 
work. With many legitimate opportunities to be- 
come a wealthy man, he never used them, and his 


202 DEATH OF MOODY. 


estate is unknown, not large, but presumably large 
enough for the purposes he devised. 

A quiet night followed the day that brought 
bereavement to the Moody family and the town of 
which Mr. Moody and the institutions founded by 
him were such prominent figures. The inmates 
of the Moody home, after a restful night, were astir 
early. Mrs. Moody seemed to be considerably 
refreshed, and the other members of the family had 
gained new strength for their experience during the 
intervals of sleep which came to them. 

Messages of condolence, which began to come in 
the first day, were received in increased numbers 
the next day. Nearly one hundred telegrams from 
all parts of the United States were received during 
the day. A number of cablegrams were also 
received. 

The Rev. F. B. Meyer, of London, who has been a 
prominent speaker at Northfield, and who, with Mr. 
Moody, held meetings in several of the large cities 
of the country last fall, cabled from England his 
condolence. 

Some of the expressions of sympathy follow: 


Deepest sympathy and Christian love. Our 


hearts bleed for you. H. M. Moore, 
C. A. Hopkins, 
Boston. 


Sad news just received. Will be there to-morrow. 
Ira D. Sankey, Brooklyn. 
Our entire household bereaved with you. 
H. C. Masie, Newton. 
Deepest and most affectionate sympathy. <A 
wonderful life and a triumphant entrance to the 
Father’s house. 
Witiiam E, Dopce, New York. 


DEATH OF MOODY. 203 


The whole world seems to be incomplete without 
our dear Moody. God bless and keep you all. 
J. WiLBUR CHAPMAN. 


Tenderest sympathy in this overwhelming sorrow. 
Mr. anp Mrs. Joun WANAMAKER, 
: Philadelphia. 


Please accept and extend to all the family my 
deepest sympathy at the time of this great bereave- 
ment. Witiiam H. Haite, 

Springfield, Mass. 

My deepest sympathy. It has been given to few 
men to live a life of such characteristic service as 
did your noble father. Anson P. STOKEs. 


Lord and Lady Overton send loving sympathy in 
our common sorrow. All Scotland mourns. Ten- 
derest sympathy with you all. 

GrorcE B. Stupp, California. 


Profound sorrow. Deepest sympathy. I loved 
Mr. Moody. GeorGE F. PENTACOST, 
Yonkers, IN. *Y- 


Your loss is great, but it is fortime. Mr. Moody’s 
work will live forall eternity. The Salvation Army 
throughout the whole world prays for you. 

BootuH-TuckeEr. 


Permit me to extend sympathy to your family. 
Uppermost in my heart and mind is gratitude to 
God for Mr. Moody’s life. J. Wituis Barr. 


All Christendom mourns with you. Our prayers 
are that you may be mightily comforted. 
T. De Witt TALmMaDGE. 


You have the deepest sympathy of my race in 
your affliction. Your husband’s work is of lasting 
value to both races. Booker T. WASHINGTON. 


I profoundly sorrow and sympathize with you and 
rejoice with him who has gone. F. E. Cuark, 


204 DEATH OF MOODY. 


Please accept my friendly sympathy in your sad 
bereavement in the death of your good husband. 
Fr. QuaiL_e, Northfield. 


I beg you to accept for yourself and family my 
sincere sympathy in your great loss. 
MarsHALL FIELD, Chicago. 


Mrs. Sage unites with me in deepest sympathy 
for you and your family in your sad bereavement. 
RUSSELL SAGE. 


We stand by in deepest sympathy. The blank is 
awful; but our beloved is with the King. God com- 
fort you. C. G. Morcan, London, Eng. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


THE LAST FAREWELL. 


The funeral was held at Northfield, December 26. 

During the morning the members of the Moody 
family were with the body, which has lain in the 
death chamber since Mr. Moody’s death, Friday. 
Soon after ten o’clock the body was placed in the 
heavy broadcloth casket and removed to the parlor 
of the Moody home, where a simple service of prayer 
was conducted by Mr. Moody’s pastor, the Rev. 
C. I. Schofield, and the Rev. R. A. Torrey, of Chi- 
cago. 

At the close of the service the casket was placed 
on a massive bier, and thirty-two Mt. Hermon stu- 
dents bore it to the church, where it was to lie in 
state. The funeral cortege was led by the Rev. 
Messrs. Schofield and Torrey, and followed by the 
members of the various institutions with which Mr. 
Moody was connected, friends, and Christian work- 
ers from all over the United States, and some rep- 
resentatives from foreign countries. ; 

One of the touching incidents of the morning was 
the appearance on the lawn outside the Moody home 
of the son, Will R. Moody, who stood in the keen 
December air, without hat or overcoat, as the pro- 
cession passed out of the house, until the last 


mourner had left the door; then the young man 
205 


206 THE LAST FAREWELL. 


leaned against a tree and gave vent to his long-sup- 
pressed grief. 

At the church, the body was placed directly in 
front of the altar, and the casket immediately 
opened. Then began to file in the neighbors and 
friends from Northfield and surrounding towns, 
who had known Mr. Moody as a neighbor and per- 
sonal friend, as well as a spiritual helper. 

The casket and the oak burial case which was to 
receive it bore plates with the inscription— 


“Dwight L. Moody, 1837—1899.”’ 


Around the casket were banked the numerous and 
beautiful floral offerings, among them being a pil- 
low from the trustees of Mt. Hermon School, bear- 
ing the inscription, in purple and white, ‘‘God is 
calling me’’; from the trustees of Northfield Semi- 
nary, an open book; from the faculty of the Bible 
Institute, in Chicago, a spray of cycas leaves; from 
the girls of Northfield Seminary, a spray of roses; 
from the Mt. Hermon students, white roses and 
laurels; from the teachers of the schools, bouquets 
of violets and hyacinths. 

While the body lay in state in the Congregational 
Church, between 11 and 2:30 o'clock, fully three 
thousand persons looked upon the face of the man 
whose name is known the world around and who, it 
was stated by several ‘here to-day, spoke during his 
life-time to billions of people. 

For a small country town, this gathering seemed 
large; but, in comparison, this number was an infin- 
itesimal delegation from the vast throngs which had 
been influenced by the voice and life of a wonderful 
man. 


oSvolyO ul ueyM poyoverd sAvM]e OY YOIYM Ul pue popunog Apooy “AW{ YOIYM YOINYO oj SI SIMD 
HOUYNHO ANNAAV ODVOIHOD 


“MOTO “Jq0u Aq ‘O0BT ‘GUSttkdop 











THE LAST FAREWELL... 209 


The church services over the remains of Evan- 
gelist Moody were simple but unusually impressive 

The services began at 12:30 o’clock, at which time 
the family arrived, Mr. Will R. Moody with Mrs. D 
L. Moody, Mr. Paul Moody and Mrs. A. P. Fitt, Mr. 
A. P. Fitt, and Mrs. W. R. Moody Following these 
came other relatives—Mr. and Mrs. Isaiah Moody, 
Mr. and Mrs. George F. Moody, Mr. and Mrs. C. M. 
Walker, Mrs. L. C. Washburn and Mr. Edward 
Moody. Following these were the grandchildren and 
members of the faculty and trustees, they having 
come in and taken seats directly behind those occu- 
pied by the family. The Rev Mr. Schofield and 
the Rev. Mr. Torrey, the honorary pallbearers, 
and several clergymen, and the Hon. John Wana- 
maker followed. 

The services opened with a hymn, ‘‘A Little 
While and He Shall Come,” and Dr. Schofield fol- 
lowed with prayer. The Rev. A. T. Pierson read 
the Scripture lesson, from II. Corinthians iv. 11— 
‘For we which live are always delivered unto death 
for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be 
made manifest in our mortal flesh.’ This was fol- 
lowed by prayer, by the Rev. George C. Needham, 
after which the congregation sang ‘‘Emanuel’s 
Land,” the music being directed by Prof. A. B 
Phillips, professor of music in the Northfield Insti- 
tute. 

The Rev. Mr. Schofield then pronounced the 
eulogy, saying: 

““*Weknow. Weare always confident.’ That is the 
Christian attitude toward the mystery of death. 
‘We know,’ so far as the present body is concerned, 
that it isa tent in which we dwell. It is a conve- 


210 THE LAST FAREWELL. 


nience for this present life. Death threatens it, so 
far as we can see, with utter destruction. Soul and 
spirit instinctively cling to this present body. At 
that point revelation steps in with one of the great 
foundational certainties and teaches us to say: ‘We 
know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle 
were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house 
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.’ 

‘‘There is a natural body and there is a spiritual 
body. But that is not all. Whither after all shall 
we go when this earthly tent dwelling is gone? To 
what scenes does death introduce us? What, ina 
word, lies for the Christian just across that little 
trench which we call a grave? Here is a new and 
most serious cause of solicitude. And here again 
revelation brings to faith the needed word: ‘We are 
confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from 
the body and to be at home with the Lord.’ 

‘*Note, now, how that assurance gives confidence. 
First, in that the transition is instantaneous. 
To be absent from the body is to be at home with 
the Lord. And secondly, every question of the 
soul which might bring back an answer of fear is 
satisfied with that one little word ‘home.’ 

‘‘And this is the Christian doctrineof death. ‘We 
know.’ ‘We are always confident.’ In this tri- 
umphant assurance Dwight L. Moody lived, and at 
high noon last Friday he died. Weare not met, 
dear friends, to mourn a defeat, but to celebrate a 
triumph. He ‘walked with God and he was not, 
for God took him.’ There in the West, in the pres- 
ence of great audiences of 12,000 of his fellow men, 
God spoke to him to lay it all down and come home. 
He would have planned it so. 


THE LAST FAREWELL. 211 


‘This is not the place, nor am I the man to pre. 
sent a study of the life and character of Dwight L. 
Moody. No one will ever question that we are lay- 
ing to-day in the kindly bosom of earth the mortal 
body of a great man. Whether we measure great- 
ness by quality of character or by qualities of intel- 
lect, Dwight L. Moody must be accounted great 

‘*The basis of Mr. Moody’s character was sincerity, 
genuineness. He had an inveterate aversion to all © 
forms of sham, unreality and pretense. Most of all 
did he detest religious pretence or cant. Along 
with this fundamental quality Mr. Moody cherished 
a great love of righteousness His first question 
concerning any proposed action was: ‘Is it right?’ 
But these two qualities, necessarily at the bottom of 
all noble characters, were in him suffused and trans- 
figured by divine grace. Besidesall this, Mr. Moody 
was in a wonderful degree brave, magnanimous and 
unselfish. 

‘Doubtless this unlettered New England country 
boy became what he was by the grace of God. The 
secrets of Dwight L. Moody’s power were: First, in 
a definite experience of Christ’s saving grace. He 
had passed out of death into life, and he knew it. 
Secondly, Mr. Moody believed in the divine author- 
ity of the Scriptures. The Bible was, to him, the 
voice of God, and he made it resound as such in the 
consciences of men. Thirdly, he was baptized with 
the Holy Spirit, and he knew it. It was to him as 
definite an experience as his conversion. Fourthly, 
he was a manof prayer; he believed in a divine and 
unfettered God. Fifthly, Mr. Moody believed in 
work, in ceaseless effort, in wise provision, in the 
power of organization, of publicity. 


212 THE LAST FAREWELL. 


“I like to think of D. L. Moody in heaven. I 
like to think of him with his Lord and with Elijah, 
Daniel, Paul, August, Luther, Wesley and Finney. 

‘‘Farewell for a little time, great heart; may a 
double portion of the Spirit be vouchsafed to us who 
remain.”’ 

The next address was by the Rev. H. B. Weston, 
of Crozier Theological Seminary, Chester, Pa., who 
said: 

‘“‘T counted it among one of the greatest pleasures 
of my life that I had the acquaintance of Mr. 
Moody: that I was placed under his influence and 
that I was permitted to study God’s words and work 
through him. 

‘‘He was the greatest religious character of this 
century. When we see men who are eminent 
among their fellows, we always attribute it to some 
special natural gift with which they are endowed, 
some special education they have received, or some 
magnetic personality with which they are blessed. 
Mr. Moody had none of these, and yet no man had 
such power of drawing the multitude. No man 
could surpass him in teaching and influencing indi- 
viduals—individuals of brain, of executive power. 
I am speaking to some of such this afternoon. Mr. 
Moody had the power of grouping them to himself 
with hooks of steel,and many of them were good 
workers with him many years; and they will carry 
on his work now that he has passed away. 

‘‘Mr. Moody had none of the gifts and qualifica- 
tions that I have mentioned. No promise, and 
apparently no possibility in his early life, no early 
promise, if he had any promise, of the life he had 
to lead. What had he? There was never anything 


THE LAST FAREWELL. 213 


as interesting in Northfield, as Mr. Moody to me. I 
listened to him with profound and great interest 
and profit, asthe one who could draw the multitude 
as no one else inthe world. He entered fully into 
the words, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but 
by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of 
God.’ So he fed upon that word; his life was in- 
stantly a growth, because he fed on the word of 
God, so that he might have it ready for every emer- 
gency 

‘All this was not for himself, but for others. He 
did not study the Bible for himself alone, but that 
he might add to his stock of knowledge. He did 
not study his Bible in order to criticise, but to make 
men partakers of that light which had enlarged his 
own soul, and that, I appeal to you, was the first 
desire of his heart, that other men might live. 

“With this one conception in his heart he dots his 
plain all over with buildings which will stand 
until the millennium. MHissoul was full of joy, and 
that definite joy finds its expression like the Hebrew 
prophet. I don’t think he sung himself, but he 
wanted the gospel sung, and I used to listen to song 
after song and I remember all the time this was 
simply the expression of that joy that welled up in 
his heart, and the joy of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

“You remember last summer how hopeful he 
was, constantly, as he compared himself to ‘that old 
man of 80 years, and I am only 62, and I have so 
much before me to live for.’ Because D. L. Moody 
had mastered, or the power of Christ had so mas- 
tered, every fibre of his being ; because of that—well, 
you'll pardon me in saying, I hardly dare say it— 
put Jesus Christ in the same body, the same metal 


214 THE LAST FAREWELL. 


calibre and surroundings, and he would fill up his 
life much as Moody did, and that is the reason to- 
day that I would rather be Dwight L. Moody in his 
coffin than any living man on earth.’’ 

The next speaker was the Rev. R. A. Torrey, who 
said: 

“Tt is often the first duty of a pastor to speak 
words of comfort to those whose hearts are aching 
with sorrow and breaking underneath the burden 
of death, but this is utterly unnecessary to-day. 
The God of all comfort has already abundantly com- 
forted them, and they will be able to comfort others. 
I have spent hours in the past few days with those 
who were nearest to our departed friend, and the 
words I have heard from them have been words of 
‘Rest in God, and triumph.’ 

‘‘As one of them has said: ‘God must be answer- 
ing the prayers that are going up for us all over the 
world, we are being so wonderfully sustained,’ 
Another has said: ‘His last four glorious hours of 
life have taken all the sting out of death,’ and still 
another, ‘Be sure that every word to-day is a word 
of triumph.’ 

‘“‘Two thoughts has God laid upon my heart this 
hour. The first is that wonderful letter of Paul in 
I. Corinthians xv. 1o—‘By the grace of God I am 
what Iam.’ God wonderfully magnified His grace 
in the life of D. L. Moody. God was magnified in 
his birth. The babe that was born 62 years ago— 
the wonderful soul was God’s gift to the world. 
How much that meant to the world; how much the 
world has been blessed and benefited by it we shall 
never know this side of the coming of Christ. 
’ God’s grace was magnified in his conversion. He 


THE LAST FAREWELL. 215 


was born in sin, as we are, but God by the power of 
His word, the regenerating power of His Holy Spirit, 
made him a mighty man of God. How much the 
conversion of that boy in Boston 43 years ago meant 
to the world no man can tell, but it was all God’s 
grace that did it. 

*‘God’s grace and love was magnified again in the 
development of that character. He had the 
strength of body that was possessed by few sons of 
men. 

“It was allfrom God. To God alone was it due 
that he differed from other men. That character 
was God’s gift to a world that sorely needed men 
like him. God’s grace and love were magnified 
again in his service. The great secret of his suc- 
cess was supernatural power, given in answer to 
prayer. 

““Time and time again has the question been asked, 
‘What was the secret of his wonderful power?’ The 
question is easily answered. There were doubtless 
secondary things that contributed to it, but the 
great central secret of his power was the anointing 
of the Holy Ghost. It was simply another fulfill- 
ment by God of the promise that has been realized 
throughout the centuries of the church’s history: 
‘Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost 
shall come upon you.’ 

““God was magnified again in his marvelous tri- 
umph over death, but what we call death had abso- 
lutely no terrors for him. He calmly looked death 
in the face, and said, ‘Earth is receding. Heaven 
is opening. God is calling me.’ Is this death? It 
isn’t bad at all. Itis sweet. No pain. No valley. 
‘I have been within the gates.’ It‘is beautiful. It 


216 THE LAST FAREWELL. 


is glorious. ‘Do not call me back. God is calling 
me.’ 

““‘This was God’s grace in Christ that was thus 
magnified in our brother’s triumph over that last 
enemy, death. From beginning to end, from the 
hour of his birth until he is laid at rest on yonder 
hilltop, Mr. Moody’s life has been a promulgation 
of God's everlasting grace and love. 

‘“The other thought that God has laid upon my 
heart in these last few hours are those of Joshua i. 2 
—‘Moses My servant is dead. Now, therefore 
arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, 
unto the land which I do give to them.’ 

‘*The death of Mr. Moody is a call to his children, 
his associates, ministers of the Word, everywhere 
and to the whole church: ‘Go forward.’ Our leader 
has fallen. Let us give up the work, some would 
say. Not foramoment. Listen to what God says: 
‘Our leader has fallen. Move forward. Moses My 
servant is dead, therefore arise, go in and possess 
the land. As Iwas with D. L. Moody, so I will be 
with you. I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.’ 

“It is remarkable how unanimous all those who 
have been associated with Mr Moody are upon this 
point. The great institutions that he has estab- 
lished at Northfield, Mt. Hermon, Chicago, and the 
work they represent must be pushed to the front as 
never before. Many men are looking for a great 
revivial. 

‘*Mr. Moody himself said when he felt the call of 
death at Kansas City: ‘I know how much better it 
would be for me to go, but we are on the verge of a 
great revival, like that of 1857, and I want to have 
-ahand init.’ He will have a mighty hand in it. 


THE LAST FAREWELL. 217 


His death, with the triumphal scenes that surround 
it, are part of God’s way of answering the prayers 
that have been going up for so long in our land for 
a revival. 

‘From this bier there goes up to-day a call to the 
ministry, to the church: ‘Forward.’ Seek, claim, 
receive the anointing of the Holy Ghost, and then 
go, forthwith, to every corner, preach in public and 
in private to every man, woman and child the infal- 
lible word of God.’’ 

After Mr. Torrey had finished, Bishop Malialieu 
said: 

“Servant of God, well done. Thy glorious war- 
fare passed, battles fought, the race is over, and 
thou art crowned at last. 

“TI first met and became acquainted with him 
whose death we mourn, in London, in the summer 
of 1875. From that day, when he moved the 
masses of the world’s metropolis, to the hour when 

-he answered the call of God to come up higher, I 
have known him, esteemed him, and loved him. 
Surely we may say, and the world will indorse the 
affirmation, that in his death one of the truest, 
bravest, purest, and most influential men of this 
wonderful nineteenth century has passed to his rest 
and his reward. 

‘‘With feelings of unspeakable loss ana absolute 
regret we gather about the casket that contains all 
that is mortal of Dwight L. Moody, and yet a 
mighty uplift must come to each one of us as we 
think of what his character and achievements were. 
He was one who never turned his back, but breasted 
forward, never doubting the clouds would break, 
never dreaming that, though right was worsted, 
wrong would triumph. 


218 THE LAST FAREWELL. 


‘‘In bone and brawn and brain he was a typical 
New Englander. He was descended from the 
choicest New England stock. He was born of a 
New England mother, and from his earliest life he 
breathed the free air of his native hills, and was 
carefully nurtured ic the knowledge of God. It was 
to be expected of him that he would become a Chris- 
tian of pronounced characteristics, for he consecrated 
himself thoroughly, completely, and irrevocably to 
the service of God and humanity. 

“The heart of no disciple of the Master ever 
breathed with more genuine, sympathetic and 
utterly unselfish loyalty than did the great, gener- 
ous, loving heart of our translated friend, because 
he held fast to the absolute truth of the Bible, and 
unequivocally and intensely believed it to be the 
inherent word of God; because he preached the gos- 
pel, rather than talked about the gospel; because 
he used his mother tongue, the terse, clear-ringing, 
straightforward Saxon; because he had the pro- 
foundest sense of brotherhood with all poor unfor- 
tunate and every outcast people; because he was 
unaffectedly tender and patient with the weak and 
the sinful; because he hated evil as thoroughly as 
he loved goodness; because he knew mightily how to 
lead a penitent soul to the Saviour; because he had 
the happy art of arousing Christian people to a vivid 
sense of their obligations and inciting them to the 
performance of their duties; because he had in his 
own soul a conscious, joyous experience of personal 
salvation. 

‘‘The people flocked to his services, they greeted 
him gladly, they were led to Christ, and he came to 
be honored and prized by a!l denominations, so that 


THE LAST FAREWELL. 219 


to-day all Protestantism recognizes the fact that he 
was God’s servant, an ambassador of Christ, and 
indeed a chosen vessel to bear the name of Jesus to 
the nations. 

‘“‘We shall not again behold his manly form, ani- 
mated with life; hear his thrilling voice, or be 
moved by his consecrated personality; but if we are 
true and faithful to our Lord we shall see him in 
glory, for already he walks the streets of the heav- 
enly city, and mingles in the songs of the innumer- 
able company of white-robed saints, seeing the King 
in his beauty and awaiting our coming. May God 
grant that in due time we may meet him over 
Jordan.’’ 

J. Wilbur Chapman, of New York, the next 
speaker, said: 

“‘T cannot bring myself to feel this afternoon that 
this service is a reality. It seems to me that we 
must awake from some dream and see again the 
face of this dear man of God, which we have so 
many times seen. It is a new picture to me this 
afternoon. I neversaw Mr. Moody with his eyes 
closed. They were always open, and it seemed 
to me open not only to see where he could help 
others, but where he could help me. His hands 
were always outstretched to help others. I never 
came near him without his helping me. 

(At this point the sun came in through a crack in 
a blind, and the rays fell directly on Mr. Moody’s 
face, and nowhere else in the darkened church did 
a single beam of sunshine fall.) 

“The only thing that seems natural is the sun- 
light now on his face. There was always a halo 
around him. I can only give a slight tribute of the 


220 THE LAST FAREWELL. 


help he hasdone me. I can only especially dedicate 
myself to God, that I, with others, can preach the 
gospel he taught. 

‘‘When a student in college, Mr. Moody found me. 
I had no object in Christ. He pointed me to the 
hope in God; he saw my heart, and I saw his Savior. 
I have had a definite life since then. When perplex- 
ities have arisen, from those lips came the words, 
‘Who are you doubting? If you believe in God’s 
word, who are you doubting?’ I was a pastor, a 
preacher, without much result. One day Mr. Moody 
came to me, and, with one hand on my shoulder and 
the other on the open Word of God, he said: ‘Young 
man, you had better get more of this into your life,’ 
and when I became an evangelist myself, in per- 
plexity, I would still sit at his feet and every per- 
plexity would vanish just as mist before the rising 
sun. And, indeed, I never came without the desire 
to be a better man, and be more like him, as he was 
like Jesus Christ. He was the dearest friend I have 
had. If my own father were lying in the coffin I 
could not feel more the sense of loss. 

The Rev. A. T. Pierson spoke next, saying: 

“When a great tree falls, you know, not only by 
its branches, but by its roots, how much soil it drew 
up as it fell.. I know of no other man who has 
fallen in this century having as wide a tract of 
uprooting as this man who has just left us. 

“T have been thinking of the four departures dur- 
ing the last quarter of a century, of Charles Spur- 
geon of London, A. J. Gordon of Boston, Catherine 
Booth, mother of the Salvation Army, and George 
Muller of Bristol, England, and not one made the 
worldwide commotion in their departure that Dwight 
Moody has caused. 


THE LAST FAREWELL. 221 


“Now, I think we ought to be very careful of 
what issaid. There is a temptation to say more 
than ought to be said, and we should be careful to 
speak as in the presence of God. This is a time to 
glorify God. 

‘Dwight L. Moody was a great man; that man, 
when he entered the church, in 1856, in Boston, 
after ten months of probation, was told by his pastor 
that he was not a sound believer. That pastor, 
taking him aside, told him he had better keep still 
in prayer meeting. The man the church held out 
at arm’s length has become the preacher of preach- 
ers, the teacher of teachers, the evangelist of evan- 
gelists. It is a most humiliating lesson for the 
church of God. 

“When, in 1858, he decided to give all his time, 
he gave the key to his future. I say everything 
D. L. Moody has touched has been a success. Do 
you know that with careful reckoning he has reached 
100,000,000 of people since he first became a Chris- 
tian? You may take all the years of public services 
in this land and Great Britain, take into considera- 
tion all the addresses he delivered, and all the audi- 
ences of his churches, and it will reach 100,000,000. 
Take into consideration all the people his books 
have reached and the languages into which they 
have been translated, look beyond his evangelistic 
work to the work of education, the schools, the 
Chicago Bible Institute, and the Bible Institute 
here. Scores of people in the world owe their exist- 
ence to Dwight L. Moody as a means of their con- 
secration. 

“T want to say a word of Mr. Moody’s entrance 
into heaven. When he entered into heaven there 


222 THE LAST FAREWELL. 


must have been an unusual commotion. I want to 
ask you to-day whether you can think of any other 
man of the last half-century whose coming so many 
souls would have welcomed at the gates of heaven. 
It was a triumphal entrance into glory. 

‘‘No man who has been associated with him in 
Christian work has not seen that there is but one 
way to live, and that way to live wholly for God. 
The thing that D. L. Moody stood for and will 
stand for for centuries to come was his living only for 
God. He made mistakes, no doubt, but if any of us 
is without sin in this respect, we might raise a stone 
at him, but I am satisfied that the mistakes of D. 
L. Moody were the mistakes of a stream that over- 
flowed its banks. Itis a great deal better to be full 
and overflowing than to be empty and have nothing 
to overflow. 

‘I feel myself called to-day by the presence of 
God to give the eye that is left to me more wholly 
to him. Mr. Moody, John Wanamaker, James 
Spurgeon (brother of Charles), and myself were 
born in the same year. Only two of us are still 
alive. John Wanamaker, let us still live wholly for 
God.’’. 

Mr. H. M. Wharton of Baltimore, spoke in behalf 
of the Southern States. He said: 

‘‘T am sure, dear friends, that if the people of the 
South could express their feeling to-day they would 
ask me to say we all loved Mr. Moody; we did love 
him, with all our hearts. It seems to me that when 
he went inside the gates of heaven he left the gates 
open a little, and a little of the light fell upon us 
all. 

‘“‘AsI go from this place to-day I am more con- 


THE LAST FAREWELL. 223 


vinced that I desire to live and bea more faithful 
minister and more earnest Christian, and more con- 
secrated in my life. We will not say ‘Good night, 
dear Mr. Moody,’ for in the morning we will meet 
again.”’ 

As Mr. Wharton ceased, Mr. Will Moody rose in 
the pew, and said he would like to speak of his 
father asa parent. He said: 

‘“As a son I want to say a few words of him asa 
father. We have heard from his pastor, his associ- 
ates and friends, and he was just as true a father. I 
don’t think he showed up in any way better than 
when, on one or two occasions, in dealing with us 
as children, with his impulsive nature he spoke 
rather sharply. We have known him to come to us 
and say: ‘My children, my son, my daughter, I 
spoke quickly; I did wrong. I want you to forgive 
me.’ That was D. L. Moody as a father. 

‘‘He was not yearning to go; he loved his work. 
Life was very attractive; it seems as though on 
that early morning as he had one foot upon the 
threshold, it was given him for our sake to give us a 
word of comfort. Hesaid: ‘This is bliss; it is like 
atrance. If thisis death, it is beautiful.’ And his 
face lighted up as he mentioned those whom he 
saw. 

‘*We could not call him back; we tried to fora 
moment, but we could not. We thank God for his 
home life, for his true life, and we thank God that 
he was our father, and that he led each one of his 
children to know Jesus Christ.’’ 

Dr. Schofield then called upon the Hon. John 
Wanamaker of Philadelphia, who said: 

“If I had any words to say it would be that the 


224 THE LAST FAREWELL. 


best commentary on the Scriptures, the best pictures 
of the Lord Jesus Christ, were in our knowledge of 
the beautiful man who is sleeping in our presence 
to-day. For the first time I can understand better 
the kind of a man Paul was, and Nehemiah, and 
Oliver Cromwell. I think of Mr. Moody as a Stone- 
wall Jackson of the Church of God of this century. 
But the sweetest of all thoughts of him are his 
prayers and hiskindnesses. It was asif we were all 
taken into his family and he had a familiarity with 
every one and we were his closest friends. 

“Tt is not alone in Northfield these buildings will 
stand, but over a hundred million buildings that 
owe their standing to his efforts, Christian associa- 
tions and churches that are erected for use both 
Sundays and week days. There is not any place in 
this country that you can go without seeing the work 
of this man of God. It seems to make every man 
seem small because he lived so far above us, as we 
crept close to his feet. It is true of every one who 
sought to be like him. 

“I can run back into the beginning of his manhood 
and there have the privilege of being close to him. 
I can call up personal friends that were at the 
head of railroads, that were distinguished in finance 
and business, and I declare to you, great as their 
successes were, I don’t believe that there is one of 
them who would not gladly have changed places 
with D. L. Moody. 

“‘The Christian laborer I believe to-day looms up 
more luminous than any man who lived in the cen- 
tury. It seems as if it were a vision when the one 
who has passed away stood in Philadelphia last 
month, when on his way to Kansas City, and, with 


* 


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THE LAST FAREWELL. 227 


tears in his eyes, he saidto me withasigh: ‘IfI 
could only hold one great city in the East before I 
die, I think it might help other cities to do the same.’ 
Still trusting God, he turned his back on his home 
and family and went a thousand miles carrying that 
burden, and it was too much for him. A great 
many of the people of the sixties are quitting work, 
and if anything is to be done for God it is time we 
consecrate ourselves to him.’’ 

The service closed with the singing by the male 
quartet of ‘‘Blessed Hope of the Coming of the 
Lord.’’ The music for this selection was recently 
arranged by Mrs. William R. Moody. Those in the 
church immediately left the building and the casket 
was closed. 

At 4:40 the casket was taken outside and the cor- 
tege started for Round Top. The Rev. Messrs. 
Schofield and Torrey were first, followed by the 
bier, escorted by thirty-two Mt. Hermon students. 
Then came the honorary pallbearers, and Ira D. 
Sankey, George Stebbins, Dr. Wood, Col. Janeway 
of New Brunswick, N. J., C. A. Hopkins of Boston, 
H. M. Moore of Boston, Gen. J. J. Estey of Brattle- 
boro, R. C. Morse of the international committee, 
many ministers and friends, and then the carriages 
containing the family and mourners. 

At the grave all sang “‘Jesus Lover of My Soul.’’ 
Dr. Torrey offered prayer, and Dr. Schofield pro- 
nounced the benediction. After the people had 
left the grave the casket was opened, and the family 
took a last look at Mr. Moody. 

The following tribute and analysis of his char- 
acter and work appeared in ‘‘The Independent”’ of 


December 28, 1899: 
13 


228 THE LAST FAREWELL. 


Succeeding generations call out each its own 
great evangelist. For the generation that is past 
that man was Dwight L. Moody. 

Mr. Moody was an example of the broadening 
educational power of earnest religion, for that was 
about all the education he had. But nature had 
endowed him with a sound mind and great com- 
mon sense. All his schooling was a few years in a 
district school; and forty-four years ago, like so 
many other boys, he quitted the farm at North- 
field at the age of seventeen to seek his fortune in 
Boston. To assume the obligations of Christian 
life and to join the Mount Hermon Congregational 
Church was to him a speedy pleasure and duty, and 
it was his conviction that this meant a life of doing 
and not of receiving good. From Boston the boy 
went to Chicago, and immediately threw himself 
into Christian work. At first it was thought that 
he was too ignorant, too ill-trained to teach in the 
Sunday-school or take part in prayer meetings; but 
he brought in his own ragged scholars, and. by the 
time he was twenty-three he was running a mission 
with sixty teachers and one thousand pupils in the 
Sunday-school, and had found it his duty to give 
himself wholly to religious work. 

Mr. Moody was two men; an evangelist and an 
organizer. He was the best known, the most 
impressive and simply eloquent of all our evangel- 
ists. Millions have flocked to hear him speak. The 
month before he died he was listened to by audi- 
ences of ten and fifteen thousand. His influence 
has been immense in Great Britain and in this 
country. Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands have 
been converted in his meetings. He was simple, 


THE LAST FAREWELL. 229 


unaffected, direct, idiomatic, full of story and 
equally of epigram, but always in deep earnest. 
Those who heard knew that they were listening to 
a great earnest soul, one who believed with inten- 
sity in what he said, who felt he had the Lord’s 
commission. He educated a school of evangelists, 
men of great ability and great success, but they all 
looked up to him as their leader. They were men 
of collegiate and theological education; all he had 
learned was from reading his Bible. But such a 
Bible as his was! It was margined all over with 
the notes of his study and the substance of his 
addresses. That was one Dwight L. Moody. 

The other Moody was the organizer. He was the 
builder of churches and Christian Association halls 
and the founder of schools. He had the gift of 
finding men of wealth that would support his work, 
and a great institution has risen up in Chicago as 
the fruit of his labor, while Northfield has become 
famous as his birthplace and the seat of the North- 
field Seminary for girls and the Mount Hermon 
Academy for boys and the Bible Training School for 
the instruction of Sunday-school teachers and relig- 
ious workers. The work of the evangelist fades from 
sight as men die, and the impulses they have gained 
-pass into the life of other men; but the institution 
lives, and in the generations to come Mr. Moody 
will be known as the founder of flourishing Christian 
schools that rest upon the Bible, and whose great 
purpose is to develop the evangelistic spirit in those 
who attend. 

We have said that a chief characteristic of Mr. 
Moody was his strong common sense. Asa plain 
student of a plain Bible, no scholar in history or 


230 THE LAST FAREWELL. 


criticism, he was of course a conservative. As a 
literalist he was naturally led into Premillena- 
rianism, and many of the speakers at his summer 
Bible conferences at Northfield were chosen from 
those who believed with him. But he would never 
allow this to be madea fad. Just so the Keswick 
school of believers, with which he sympathized, 
could never make him their mouthpiece. He 
would give their better men place with gladness, 
but he understood what was the breadth of Christian 
life and faith, and there was no bitterness in his 
soul for those who held a more liberal faith than 
he. What he wanted was Christian life, and, 
above all, Christian service. The man that would 
preach the Gospel and bring souls to Christ was 
the man he wanted and in whom he believed. His 
heart was too large, his purposes too grand to be 
confined in narrower limits than those of the Church 
of Christ. For denominations he cared nothing; 
for Christianity he would give up his life. Every 
one believed in him, no matter of what faith or 
unfaith; all knew that Dwight L. Moody was an 
honest, sincere, devoted Christian. 

Mr. Moody’s great evangelistic successes have not 
been during the past ten years. He has had great 
meetings, but those who attended were mainly 
church members. It would seem asif, for the 
present at least, the era of revivals was waning. 
Perhaps Mr. Moody himself saw this, and gave 
himself with the greater zeal to Christian education, 
for the better Christianity and the better hope of 
the Church is found rather in the education of the 
young than in the conversion of the old. It will 
be a blessed time for the Church when revivals are 


THE LAST FAREWELL. 231 


no longer needed, when children are taught and 
expected to take upon themselves the obligations 
of Christian life, not in the way of a formal con- 
firmation at a given age, but with aserious and 
settled purpose to be followers of our Lord. This 
is what is meant by the developing work of the 
Sunday-school and especially of our various Chris- 
tian Endeavor societies. When such influences as 
they foster in the Church pervade the community 
there will be no longer need for the first Mr. Moody, 
only for the work of the other Moody, who under- 
stood the coming age and the essential EATS 
of Christian education. 

Mr. Moody’s life teaches us that, while the Church 
needs scholars, what she needs most of all is the 
impulse of Christian devotion, that force which 
compelled St. Paul, and has compelled a thousand 
others in all branches of the Church on whom was 
laid the burden of a lost world, and who have said, 
‘Wo is me if I preach not the Gospel.’’ Mr. 
Moody’s life was well filled out with work nobly 
accomplished, and his death was the fit end of a 
life of faith and service. His memory is one of 
the treasures of the Christian Church. 


CHAPTER XIX. _ 


EULOGY. 


In connection with the passing of the world’s great 
evangelist, Dwight L. Moody, many instances of his 
great labors are brought to mind. The kingdom of 
heaven receives into its membership many who are 
humble in life, of limited faculties, but it also has 
a place for men destined to take their places in 
the world's history. To this class belonged Mr. 
Moody. 

Moody was a product of the Christian church. 
That he was incidentally a product of the Congre- 
gational church is of little moment. It is, however, 
a significant fact that he was a product of the 
Christian church. 

The story is told of a young man who left a 
country home to enter a wholesale shoe house in 
New York city. Every Sabbath morning he was 
seen in the balcony of the church, over which Dr. 
Kirk was at that time pastor. His head was often 
times bowed in sleep when the sermon closed, but 
one day he awoke in time to hear the closing words. 
‘‘For His sake, Amen.’’ He went away thinking, 
and as.a result of that thought the world had 
Dwight L. Moody, whose earthly ministry closed 
last Friday. He was a product of the Christian 


232 


EULOGY. 233 


church and the finest example of the possibilities of 
consecrated labor. 

If ‘“‘minister’’ means ‘‘a man set apart,’’ if it 
means one who has passed through some educa- 
tional institution, then Moody was not a minister. 
But if you go back to the first use by the church of 
the word then you will find that he was a minister. 

His services stirred both worlds. Across the 
water he shook the church into a new life, and in 
this country his work resulted in the redemption of 
myriad souls. We are told that as the result of his 
consecrated labors we have had the greatest Chris- 
tian work this world has ever seen. Compare him 
with the greatest pulpit orators, men prominent in 
all denominations, and Dwight L. Moody towers a 
little above them all. 

What was the secret of his power? In the first 
place, Moody was amost profoundly educated man. 
He was never in acollege, never entered the halls 
of a divinity school, never even had an academy 
education, yet he was an educated man. He had 
the power to think upon large themes and he was a 
student of the Bible. The man who will study this 
book forty years will become an educated man. I 
would not under-estimate the learning of schools. 
Go to school, go to college just as much as you can, 
but let me remind you if you are studying this book 
you are getting a university education. 

Mr. Moody was a man of splendid poise. An 
evangelist necessarily has a tendency toward undue 
emotionalism; to attract the public by working 
upon their emotions. Moody balanced the emo- 
tional side by the educational side, in establishing 
the schools at Northfield. 


234 EULOGY. 


Evangelists are apt to go to extremes, to have 
some peculiar hobby, some different doctrine. 
Moody was surrounded by a lot of religious cranks, 
men who held peculiar views in abnormal propor- 
tions. ‘Through it all he never lost his poise. 

Another temptation of the evangelist is narrow- 
ness. Into his life comes unconsciously this spirit 
of narrowness. Yet Dwight L. Moody was as broad 
aman as the country held. George Adams Smith, 
the great liberal thinker of Scotland, was invited 
by Mr. Moody to speak at Northfield. At once a 
great hue and cry arose and some of the leading 
evangelists of the country went to him and pro- 
tested. Moody took time to pray over the matter 
and finally decided that Smith should come. Moody’s 
broadness was based on character. 

He was a man who depended utterly on God. 
When asked when he was born he answered: “‘I 
was born in the flesh in 1837, but I was born in the 
spirit in 1851.’’ 

Moody never had that smirk of boundless self 
conceit. He once said: ‘‘I am thoroughly tired 
of the man who is so good he can save himself.’’ 

Nobody knows how much money Moody collected, 
but he gathered an immense amount. It has been 
estimated as high as $10,000,000. He had a chance 
to be a wealthy man, yet he died poor. He lived 
what he preached. He called upon men to sacri- 
fice, to live the life that Jesus lived. 

Out in the little white farm house in the Berk- 
shire hills, amid all the beauty and grandeur of 
nature his life fluttered out and the angels came 
and took his soul to the heaven above. That was 


EULOGY. 235 





the end of Dwight L. Moody. 
Laughlin, Kalamazoo, Mich. 


Rev. R. W. Mc- 


We are accustomed to think of Paul as great, 
and so he was. I venture to believe that there are 
tens of hundreds all around us that are easily his 
equals—men, therefore, that would be just as 
mighty in their apostleship if they had the same 
measure of God’s spirit upon them, had allowed 
themselves to be made as divine as he—men who 
would be able to give an equal impulse to the pro- 
gress of Christian civilization. 

The world has lost very much such a man in the 
person of Mr. Moody. We hear a good deal said at 
present about his exceptional tact, and about his 
phenomenal good sense and other striking features 
that are supposed to have been part of his original 
endowment. As for his native abilities, the story, 
I believe, still remains uncontradicted that when he 
first applied for church membership it was proposed 
to receive him on probation simply, as he appeared 
insufficiently intelligent to appreciate the meaning 
of the step he was taking.—Rev. Dr. Charles H. 
Parkhurst, New York. 


The death of Mr. Moody attracts the attention of 
the Christian world. Though not an old man, his 
vast influence for good had continued for half a 
century, reaching into every English-speaking 
country. 

To have seen and heard a really great man fora 
single time is a permanent gain to every young 
person; and such opportunity should be sought at 
the cost of trouble and expense if need be. 

- was my good fortune to have been somewhat 


236 EULOGY. 


familiar with Mr. Moody’s work during his earlier 
years. Most young and middle-aged people now 
think of Mr. Moody as an evangelist only, as that 
work has, during the past twenty-five or thirty years, 
largely overshadowed his earlier efforts. His prior 
activities that attracted attention were in the Sun- 
day-schools and Young Men’s Christian Associa- 
tions. Little is now said of these, but I am not 
sure that they were not more far-reaching in results 
than even his noted evangelistic work in later years. 
They set in motion a new set of workers and new 
methods, the results from which are now difficult to 
fully appreciate. When Mr. Moody first went to 
Chicago, Sunday-schools were largely composed of 
children of church-going people, conducted in a 
formal manner not especially inviting to children. 
There had not been much of the ‘‘going out into the 
byways and hedges and compelling the wayward to 
come in,’’ done at that time. His great Sunday- 
school, gathered almost exclusively from the worst 
city element, including young and old, attracted 
attention the country over. Then followed great 
gatherings of children from the churchless classes, 
like that at Akron, Ohio, built up by the late great 
manufacturer, Lewis Miller, so long the president 
of the Chautauqua Assembly, and in Philadelphia 
by John-Wanamaker, the noted merchant and recent 
Postmaster-General, and others of national renown, 
manned by the best lay talent from every calling. 
The evangelical modern mission Sunday-schools, if 
not commencing with, was given a wonderful for- 
warding impetus by Mr. Moody’s early work. For 
years he was the leading and inspiring spirit in the 
great Sunday-school assemblages of the land. 


EULOGY. 237 


His vivifying influence on the few Y. M. C. A. 
Associations then struggling along under the preju- 
dices of conservative churches and many good men, 
was even more marked. His desire to help young 
men living sinful lives seemed unbounded. He had 
been there himself. I have often heard him give his 
experiences before conversion, speaking of himself 
as a “‘miserable wharf rat on the docks of Bos- 
ton.’’ Heseemed confident that every young man in 
like condition could be reached and reclaimed if 
Christians cared to make the effort. He developed 
a wonderful faculty of doing this himself and inspir- 
ing others toattempt it. Hefound the Y. M. C. A. 
the most efficient means for accomplishing the de- 
sired object. Under his influence the organization 
in Chicago becamea great power. Hehad a faculty 
of getting moneyed persons interested in his projects. 
Such men as Marshall Field supported his work lib- 
erally, not only with their money, but by their influ- 
ence aS prominent business men. His efficiency in 
organizing these associations was soon recognized, 
and he was in demand all over the country. He 
was the life and directing power in all their great 
meetings. As representative of one of the more 
active associations in Ohio, I had opportunity to 
note his seemingly unconscious leadership during 
several years, in both state and national conven- 
tions, which aroused great admiration for the man. 
When I first commenced hearing him, he was but 
an indifferent speaker, so far as ordinary eloquence 
goes; but his earnestness was so transparently 
genuine that he was always listened to by all classes 
with great interest. The entire absence of any 
semblance to cant, his good sense and evident hon- 


238 EULOGY, 


esty of purpose were conspicuous in all his addresses. 

His tact in managing difficult or delicate business 
never failedhim. I remember what promised to be 
a most painful incident at an international conven- 
tion being heldin Portland, Me. It was ata morning 
business session, but the great hall was crowded. 
Delegates were present from nearly ever state, and 
several from England and Canada. Discussing 
some matters that brought opinions sharply differ- 
ing, unguarded, harsh words from some of the hot- 
headed delegates threatened a disgraceful scene. 
Mr. Moody quickly and without occasioning any 
dissent, secured immediate adjournment, and called 
a prayer meeting for delegates only in a smaller 
room. It was soon filled, and the meeting opened, 
as I now remeinber it, with one of the most impress- 
ive prayers I have ever heard. Men who a few 
moments before faced each other with sullen looks 
and angry words followed in the service, and at the 
next session, the unfortunate business was disposed 
of in the best of feeling. 

His eloquence and power as a speaker improved 
rapidly, and the desire to hear him was remarkable. 
At the state and national meetings of the Y. M. C. 
A. whenever he was announced foran address, 
however large the hall, provision was always made 
for one or two overflow meetings. It mattered not 
how distinguished speakers were provided, for these 
supplemental audiences, they always insisted on re- 
maining till Mr. Moody appeared and spoke to them, 
after the principal meeting adjourned. 

He spoke without notes, and with such readiness 
and ease that the common notion was that he neither 
made nor needed any special preparation. I had 


EULOGY. 239 


occasion to know that at least at that time this was 
amistake. Whatever the character of the audience 
he expected to meet, he made the most careful and 
laborious preparation time would allow. 

Personally, he was a plain, cheerful, easily 
approached, kindly-hearted man. Though commen- 
cing without position or special training, he did well 
an important part of the world’s most important 
work of the last half of the nineteenth century.—- 
J. H. Reed, Riverside, Cal. 


A great man has fallen—not.a great scholar or 
thinker; not a great writer or theologian—but still 
a great man. Mr. Moody was great in his influence 
over men; greatin the work he accomplished; great 
in that power which lives and shapes other lives 
which come after. He hasmade his mark upon the 
nineteenth century as but few men have done. His 
influence in-all directions has been healthy, pure 
and always on the right side. The effect of his 
preaching upon preachers has been inspiring and 
helpful. There were those who criticised him, but 
when his critics heard his glowing words, so full of 
the divine love, they could but acknowledge his 
sincerity and also his power. There are some les- 
sons which the Christian churches should learn 
from the life work of Mr. Moody. 

He has shown what a layman without great learn- 
ing can do to advance Christianity. Mr. Moody 
had great administrative ability. He might have 
become a C. P. Huntington or a John Wanamaker 
in the business world. He chose to use his ability 
in doing God’s work directly. In work for young 
men, in founding schools where those without money 


240 EULOGY. 


could secure an education, and in training workers 
for Christian service he has accomplished much. 

He has made the fact plain that the gospel of 
Christ, preached simply and earnestly, will com- 
mand a hearing and will transform the lives of those 
who accept it. He did not defend Christianity; he 
preached it. Hedid not prop up the cross of Christ 
lest it should fall; he pointed men to it and to Him 
who died upon it. With absolute faith in the teach- 
ings of the Bible, it was his mission to present a 
living Savior to dying men. He believed that in 
preaching there should be less art and more heart. 
Mr. Moody was a man of tender heart and of great 
faith in God, and these gave him great power with 


men. 
“Servant of God, well done. 
Rest from thy loved employ; 
The battle fought, the victory won, 
Enter thy Master’s joy.”’ 


—Rev. E. A. Woods, First Baptist Church, San 
Francisco, Cal. 


Wh7n death comes, asa rule, it is like an arrow 
pass: 1g through the air, which soon closes upon it, 
and allis tranquil again. But when such a great 
life and ornament of the church as the late Mr. 
Moody was, ‘is quenched, such an event somewhat 
resembles the apocalyptic vial poured into that 
element named and which changed its temperature 
and produced fearful commotions. 

Well do I remember how his visits to England 
were looked for by the churches with prayerful ex- 
pectancy, and how his ministrations there stirred 
up the religious life of the whole country, and re- 
sulted in a glorious spiritual harvest. I shall never 
forget the pleasure it gave me while living in South 
Africa, when I read the reports of the wonderful 


EULOGY. 241 


work which the Lord was doing through His honored 
servant in this country. Often was my soul 
refreshed in the midst of the depressing influences 
of an African life, when I read some of his sweet 
evangelical utterances. He was a great personality, 
and a mighty religious force. His labors created 
an epoch in church life. There was but one Mr. 
Moody, though there are hosts of feeble imitators; 
as in England there was but one Mr. Spurgeon, 
though there were many who aped him. 

No one can estimate the amount of good that was 
accomplished by that one man, whose death is sin- 
cerely mourned by English-speaking people to-day, 
throughout the world. He was no fiery recluse 
trying to preach the people into a new crusade; 
but like a mild and earnest seer, while he moved 
about among the people, he bore about with him a. 
reverent consciousness that he dealt with the 
majesty of man, and by the magnetic force of spir- 
itual life, drew around him all grades and condi- 
tions of human life, which he directed with mar- 
velous power and clearness of thought and simplicity 
of language, to the only refuge for guilty men. 

Thank God for the life and labors of Mr. Moody. 
—Rev. James Hughes, Scranton, Pa. 


I was converted through Mr. Moody’s preaching, 
fourteen years ago, at Chicago. He was preaching 
at the Chicago Avenue Church, known as ‘‘Moody’s 
church.’’ I was an infidel prior to hearing Mr. 
Moody, and used to swear by Bob Ingersoll, who 
was my patron saint. I dropped in on Mr. Moody 
one evening, just out of curiosity, knowing that he 
was preaching at this church. It was the first time 


242 EULOGY. 


I had heard him, and I was impressed from the 
start. I went there to study the speaker and the 
philosophy of what he said, as I always did when I 
heard an evangelist. That night he preached the 
first sermon on ‘‘The Love of God’’ that I had ever 
heard—and I was forty-four years old. The thing 
that took hold of me was the man’s intense earnest- 
ness. His subject was ‘‘The Prodigal Son.’’ He 
dwelt on the wonderful love of a father, and I got 
hungry to learn of that kind of love, and as a result 
of what I heard that night, I went away and was 
converted a few days afterward. 

At that time I was living at Liberty, in this. State, 
owned a fine farm and had everything on it that 
comfort required. I immediately sold my farm— 
threw it away, in fact—did not stop to get a bargain 
out of it, and went to preaching. 

I got out a new book, about a month ago, on the 
Lord’s Prayer, which I have dedicated to Mr. 
Moody.—Mr. Brown, Editor Ram’s Horn. 


What are the secrets of Mr. Moody’s power and 
success? JIanswer: First, an overwhelming passion 
to serve Jesus Christ and redeem human souls. 
Second his teachableness. While a preacher and 
teacher, he was always in the attitude of a learner. 
Third, modesty and humility. He shrank from being 
the subject of flattery orevencommendation. Once 
he said: ‘Strike me rather than praise me.”’ 
Fourth, practical common sense. He always fished 
in the pools where the fish were. His greatest 
power consisted in his ability successfully to set 
others at work. His commendation of a worker, 
*‘She sees things to do,’’ applied emphatically to 








Copyright, 1900, by}Robt. O. Law. 
THE EMPTY CHAIR. 


Mr. Moody always occupied this Chair in the pulpit at the Chicago Avenue Church 
when preaching there. 





- P d 
‘ 
~ 
- 
i] 
- 
- 
’ 
: 
. 





EULOGY. 245 


Mr. Moody. Fifth, his entire consecration. The 
story of.his great yearning and waiting for months 
for the power of the Holy Ghost was one of the most 
fascinating of the confidential communications which 
he made in the Northfield gathering of Christian 
workers. He had power with God, and so had 
power with mankind beyond any other Christian 
leader of his time. 

His death-bed scene was a touching and fitting 
close of his noble life. Knowing he was about to 
depart he gave tender and thoughtful counsel to his 
wife and children with reference to the continuance 
and development of the departments of Christian 
work which he had begun. Ashe grew weaker, 
and his vital forces ebbed, he suddenly exclaimed 
joyously: ‘‘Isee earth receding ; heaven is opening; 
God is calling me!’’ And this vigorous, aggressive, 
successful herald of Christianity was gone from 
earth to heaven. Shall we not yearn more than 
ever before, to so live that we, too, may see the 
earth receding, heaven opening, and hear God call- 
ing us to greater service and reward?—Rev. Dr. 
_Howard H. Russell, M. E. Church, Delaware, O. 


While Henry Ward Beecher preached for many 
years to the largest congregation in America (about 
5,000), and Charles Haddon Spurgeon addressed the 
largest in Great Britain (about 6,000), yet Dwight 
Lyman Moody has spoken to a much larger number 
of people in his wandering evangelistic work than 
either of the other distinguished divines, and per- 
haps to a larger number of persons than any other 
speaker of this or any other generation. 

His scholarship and oratorical ability have been 


246 EULOGY. 


questioned, but there can be no doubt that he pos- 
sessed a wonderful and magical power. At his last 
appearance in Los Angeles the capacity of Haz- 
zard’s pavilion was not only tested to the utmost, 
but the doors had to be closed against the throng 
that could not be accommodated. It has been so 
everywhere. The very last sermon he preached 
was listened to by 15,000 people in Kansas City. 

But, while Mr. Moody was not a polished orator, 
he possessed a faculty for condensing the substance 
of doctrines into pointed paragraphs and striking 
apothegms, and was decidedly fertile in apt and 
homely illustrations drawn from the common occur- 
rences of life. He had an inexhaustible fund of an- 
ecdote and personal experience which, being related 
with detailed particularity, seemed very real, but so 
far as their verity was concerned, they often partook 
more of the nature of parable than fact. But the 
great Master has set the precedent, and doubtless 
Mr. Moody felt justified in embellishing the facts 
when he could thus make more effective use of his 
material. 

Mr. Moody held a series of meetings in Boston, 
two years ago. Great audiences filled Tremont 
Temple throughout his stay. His methods, intellect- 
ual, spectacular, and musical, were studied to ascer- 
tain the secret of his drawing power. Both secular 
and religious press analyzed and criticised his work. 
While the pews were crowded, cultured Boston lis- 
tened coldly if not cynically. While the people 
appreciated his wit, eloquence, and home thrusts, 
they were unemotional, and at last the preacher be- 
came exasperated, and indulged in some vigorous 
remarks that seemed to have a local flavor, and did 


EULOGY, 247 


~ have the effect of arousing their slow susceptibil- 
ities. 

After enlarging upon the sins of church members, 
Mr. Moody asked: ‘‘Why are your prayer-imeet- 
ings so dead that you can hardly breathe in them? 
It is because of those things, my friends. If there 
is a man or woman here who has his property rented 
for anything disreputable, you have got to get out 
of it, or the curse of God will fall upon you. When 
you do a thing of that kind you are sure to have 
trouble in your families—your son or your daughter 
going wrong.’’ At this point, the reporters state, 
there were such obvious signs of dissent or dislike 
in the audience that Mr. Moody was forced to notice 
them. ‘‘I dare say,” he said, ‘‘that this kind of a 
talk throws a coldness over the meeting, but you 
have got to have a little coldness before you get 
warmed up. What we want is the revival of right- 
eousness or nothing.’’ 

Proceeding, he said: ‘‘There is a class of church 
members who labor under the delusion that if they 
are worldly Christians they are going to make the 
most of both worlds. That is a terrible delusion.’’ 

The following passage is almost Emersonian: 

““Let us have done looking at obstacles; is there 
anything too hard for God? Think of this world. 
Think of the great mountains, its rivers, its inhab- 
itants. Yet itis only a little ball thrown from the 
hand of Jehovah!”’ 

Speaking of respectable people, and he looked 
straight into the faces of the well-dressed men and 
women in front of him, he exclaimed: ‘‘I suppose 
_ if you had gone to Sodom a week before its destruc- 
tion, they would have told you that Lot was one of 


248 EULOGY. 


the most influential men in the city—perhaps had 
the best turnout, and owned some of the best corner 
lots. A good many men, no doubt, thought that 
Lot was long-headed. You hear a man called long- 
headed and the best business man in Boston—and 
his family is going to ruin. He is long-headed, isn’t 
he? The Lord pity him.’’ 

The Boston Transcript, reviewing the work of the 
evangelist, commented as follows: ‘‘The truth is, 
Mr. Moody is an intensely practical man. He 
preaches against sin—not as an abstract thing, but 
as something concrete, here, on the spot. He treats 
Christianity, not as a collection of beautiful aphor- 
isms, but as affording a standard and a rule of every- 
day life. Therefore, it is that Tremont Temple 
hears him coldly.”’ 

Though Mr. Moody did not of late years dwell 
upon the pangs and anguish of the lost, as was his 
wont in the earlier period of his work, when he was 
known as a revivalist rather than as an evangelist, 
yet to the very last he was sturdily orthodox. A 
few months ago he was in Denver, and preached as 
usual to crowded houses. Vehemently defending 
the church dogmas, he said: ‘‘Take atonement: 
I'd leave my Bible right here—wouldn’t take it 
home with me if I didn’t know it was full of atone- 
ment. Take justification: Martin Luther found 
justification in the Bible, and he roused the world. 
Take the prophecies and follow them out. There 
are two hundred prophecies in the Bible, every one 
of which has been fulfilled or is in the state of be- 
ing fulfilled now. There has never been anything 
done in this world that hasn’t been prophesied in 
the Bible.’’ 


EULOGY. 249 


“Christ will take the burden of your care and sor- 
row as well as of your sin. Christ can bear them 
all. A good many people think he takes sin alone. 
Did you ever think how many volumes it would take 
to hold the account of the sorrows of the people 
here? A horse could not haul the record away. 
Every heart here has a sorrow, and many a man 
could get up and tell you a story to make you cry. 

““The fact is God made our hearts too big for this 
world, and you can roll the whole earth into them 
and yet they are empty. This world is too small to 
satisfy our hearts.”’ 

““One day a young lawyer sought the kingdom of 
God and found it, and when he went home that 
night, he said: ‘Wife, I’m going to serve the God 
of heaven. I’m going to confess Jesus Christ, and I 
want to have a family altar, so to-night we’ll gather 
all the children and the servants into the dining- 
room and we’ll have prayers there.’ And the wife 
said: ‘Well, that’s all right, John, but you are not 
used to praying, and you know we are going to have 
some lawyers to tea to-night, and you might make 
a mistake before them. Hadn’t you better wait 
and have a little service in the kitchen after the 
company’s gone?”’ 

““*No, wife,’ said the young man, ‘this is the first 
time I’ve asked Christ into my house, and I guess 
I’ll take Him into the best room.’ 

‘‘And he did it. He got out his Bible and he read 
it, and he got down on his knees and prayed like a 
man, and I tell you that man was a hero.”’ 

Mr. Moody had a wonderful faculty for getting 
money, whether it was a simple collection to meet 
current expenses, or some large subscriptions to 


250 EULOGY. 


carry on the work of his schools at Northfield and 
Chicago. In the early part of 1898 he sent notice 
that his schools needed money, and before his per- 
sonal appeals were all distributed, he received a do- 
nation of $100,000 from a single person whose name 
was withheld. In an address delivered in one of 
the educational halls, he alluded to a neighboring 
hill as ‘‘Temptation Point.’’ When, after the ad- 
dress, he was asked why he called the hill by that 
name, ‘‘Oh,’’ he replied, ‘‘I thought some one might 
be tempted to erect a chapel for us on that point.’’ 
The hint was taken, and the chapel was built. 

It is a fact, however, and cannot be denied, that 
Mr. Moody sometimes showed a partiality for cap- 
italists—when they responded liberally to his de- 
mands for funds. A large donation seemed to offset 
a multitude of imperfections in a donor’s life and 
character. And having come into personal contact 
with some of the great millionaires, and having 
been treated with genial courtesy by them, he not 
only hesitated to criticise their questionable busi- 
ness methods, but has been known to go out of his 
way to apologize for them and their unsavory trans- 
actions. Yet this statement is not made to detract 
ungenerously from the fame of the great preacher. 
It simply shows that he, like all the rest of us, had 
‘a great deal of human nature. 

Mr. Moody was president of ‘‘The Bible Institute 
for Home and Foreign Missions of the Chicago 
Evangelization Society.’’ From that headquarters 
he wrote the following characterstic fund-soliciting 
letter to a friend in California. This letter is in the 
possession of the writer, and is dated September 15, 
1893, the year of the Chicago World's Fair: 


EULOGY. 251 


“‘For several months I have been in Chicago con- 
ducting a World’s Fair evangelistic campaign. The 
work has had God’s richest blessing and has gone 
far beyond my expectation. 

‘““Some of the most prominent ministers, evangel- 
ists and workers in the world are assisting me in 
this work. During the time remaining in Septem- 
ber and October, I desire to push the battle to the 
gates. I want to make a personal appeal to your 
young people to assist me. 

“The cost of hiring halls, theatres, advertising, 
etc., is very large, and, on account of the hard 
times, it is difficult to get money from the ordinary 
sources. Will you please see what the young peo- 
ple in your organization can do by personal collec- 
tion, or personal subscriptions, and send to us as 
soon as possible? 

‘“The need is great and the opportunity one of a 
lifetime—to spread the gospel to the corners of the 
earth.’’ 

We may be sure this appeal was not in vain. As 
amatter of fact, this and like appeals sent to other 
localities were responded to with surprising liberal- 
ity. 

Mr. Moody was fond of a joke, but did not always 
get the best of his victim. He started out in life as 
a drummer, and during Lincoln’s administration 
was traveling through southern Illinois, when, as 
the train drew up to a station, he spoke to a man 
passing the car window, and asked if he knew that 
Lincoln was on the train. The man showed great 
interest and said: ‘‘No; is he?’’ “I think not, * 
answered Moody, ‘‘I only asked if you knew that he 
was.’’ The man said nothing, but presently re- 


252 EULOGY. 


turned and remarked that the little town had been 
experiencing considerable excitement. ‘‘What’s 
the matter?’’ asked Mr. Moody. ‘‘The authorities 
wouldn’t let some folks bury a woman,’’ was the 
reply. ‘‘What was the reason for refusing?’’ Moody 
asked. ‘‘She wasn’t dead,’’ was the laconic reply. 

Talking to his class of girls one day against the 
practice of card-playing, theater-going and dancing, 
one young lady asked if he could not modify his 
statements and permit dancing among family 
friends, as the exercise tended to add grace to one’s 
figure. Mr. Moody replied: ‘‘My dear girl, I 
would a thousand times rather have you get more 
grace in your heart and less in your heels.’’ 

Moody recognized the power of the press. He 
once remarked: ‘“‘I believe that the press and the 
pulpit are the two great agencies to purify the 
world.’’ But he had no exalted opinion of certain 
metropolitan papers of which he once remarked: 
‘“‘T don’t believe that the newspapers of Sodom and 
Gomorrah (if they had any) were guilty of worse 
things in their worst days. If a minister bored a 
hole ina man’s head who had been reading that 
stuff, he could not inject a serious thought of eternal 
things.’’ 

Undoubtedly much of the phenomenal success 
attending the evangelistic efforts of Mr. Moody was 
due to the association with him of the hymn-singing 
Ira D. Sankey. The newspapers heralded the com- 
ing, not of Mr. Moody, the preacher, but of Moody 
and Sankey, the evangelists, and Mr. Sankey’s part 
in the service was an important part of the program. 

Indeed, the music, both solo and congregational, 
was to many persons the most attractive feature of 


EULOGY. 253 


the Moody and Sankey meetings. When one’s 
emotions are stirred by grand old hymns, sung with 
unction by an immense audience, sweet and cher- 
ished memories of earlier years throng the mind, 
which are calculated to awaken whatever is solemn 
and reverent in one’s nature. The average person 
is then peculiarly receptive to religious influences. 
—Wm. H. Knight, in Los Angeles Herald. 


These post-graduates of theological knowledge 
were suspicious and jealous of this man, Christ, 
who, without the commonly accepted mental cul- 
ture, sprang among them and at once showed them 
that He was their Master. But he had not been 
trained in the orthodox fashion. He had not been 
through the regularly prescribed curriculum. He 
had no collegiate diploma. And to this day men 
are shy of anyone who dashes into any line of work 
and shows himself a master, unless he has received 
that training that the world contends a man must 
have to gain success. 

The world was shy of Moody at first, and the the- 
ologians especially, but he deservedly stood in the 
first rank of Christ’s descendants, and the world has 
long since so greeted him. 

In all kinds of people there are common, generic 
attributes that produce a democratic level, and on 
this level we find believers and unbelievers. All of 
both classes agree as to Moody’s greatness and use- 
fulness. Collegians, educators, politicians, the com- 
mon people, join unanimously in proclaiming him 
great. What made him great, pre-eminent among 
his fellows? 

God gave Moody the necessary physical virility 


254 EULOGY. 


and build for greatness. He was given wonderful 
mental clearness, large ‘‘rationality,’’ another name 
for common sense. Those so endowed often go off 
at a tangent, into some vagary, and become and are 
properly termed cranks. Not so with Moody. No 
particular school-or church could claim him, yet all 
claimed him. All said he was orthodox. 

He had marvelous sagacity and tact. He read 
men quickly and accurately. He was a blunt man; 
had no time to exchange compliments. His will 
power was supreme. Like St. Paul, he was a divine 
egotist. Christ’s will was behind him. 

His moral qualities were always noted for their 
sincerity and genuineness. He was a teacher and 
liver of righteousness. He was a learned man, 
not of the cloistered class. His school was real life, 
and from this he secured the deepest form of edu- 
cation. Books were not his source of learning. A 
great man precedes the great book, for without 
the great man there can be no great book. 

One book, however, he knew to the highest de- 
gree of perfection—the Bible. All his technical 
knowledge was drawn from this. It was his stock 
in trade. This book, with human life, as it prac- 
tically exists, he knew from lid tolid. He hada 
Shakespearean power of knowing and telling of 
men. 

Spiritually, Moody possessed a superlative faith— 
glad, free, spontaneous. He was never haunted by 
any questionings as to the inspiration of the Bible. 
Christ’s divinity, the reality of the cross or the fu- 
ture meeting of his Master. His was a conquering 
faith. His heart was purity itself, and consecrated 
beyond man’s knowledge. 


EULOGY. 255 


Moody with Sankey was the force that drove back 
the tide of agnosticism which some years ago seemed 
to be about to overwhelm England. He was another 
Wesley, Wakefield, Luther. And all this great 
power was because Christ lived in Moody. His 
belief in Christ was not a mere intellectual, casual 
belief. He really lived in Christ and Christ in him. 
Moody belonged to Christ. He was captured, mas- 
tered by Him and was his bond slave. He was 
eaten up with ambition, surpassing that of Alex- 
ander, but Moody’s ambition was the saving of souls 
for Christ. 

Moody has gone to the unseen, but let us rejoice 
for his life and that now he is at rest, a victor of 
victors in life’s battle. Be not discouraged; the 
mold for great men is never broken, and God will 
raise up another such leader who will win still 
greater victories for the cause of righteousness. — 
Rev. J. Kinsey Smith, Louisville, Ky. 


So pre-eminently Christ-like was this great worker 
for the Lord and his fellow-men, that out of many 
times that I have heard him speak I could not dis- 
cover a trace of sectarianism. He was first of all 
a Christian, then a Methodist. He was essentially 
a religious teacher, and nota theological exponent, 
and measured by the Christstandard, ‘By their 
fruits ye shall know them,’ he did a work great and 
marvelous. The life of Moody was not consecrated 
to the attacking of the beliefs of others or the 
defending of his own personal theology, but the 
inspiring of men and women with the hope of a 
sweeter and better life here and hereafter. 

He seemed to have a power to encourage the 


256 EULOGY. 


despairing and to inspire the hopeless ones. He 
seemed to be a living reservoir of faith, hope and 
inspiration, which he could impart to those about’ 
him. For whocan doubt that the soul filled with 
hope can impart hope to others, or that the brave- 
hearted can inspire the weak or down-hearted ones? 
The burden of this great man’s preaching was to 
make men aid women good, pure and Christ-like. 
To show them the loving plan of God in human life 
and destiny, which they all had the power to defeat 
or realize by their own lives and actions, the key 
note of his preaching was so often sounded in that 
favorite text, ‘‘Benot deceived. God is not mocked, 
for whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap.” 
- Mr. Moody never tried to frighten men into the 
kingdom of God but he rather plead with them and 
persuaded them, holding before them a vision of 
the love of God in the parable of the prodigal son, 
and the tenderness of Christ towards the Magdalen, 
and His sympathy for the weak and sinful. He 
preached powerfully to men’s hearts and consciences, 
but seldom to their fears and never to their super- 
stitions. To him, there was no mystery in religion 
save the mystery there is in the transformation of a 
hard, selfish, sinful soul into a soul gentle, sweet, 
unselfish and Christ-like. He had a great convic- 
tion that his Bible and his Christ could transform 
and save the world, and this glowing conviction 
especially displayed itself when he went to Henry 
Ward Beecher and earnestly pleaded with him to - 
join with him in evangelistic work. ‘‘Other men,’’ 
said he, ‘‘can carry on a pastorate; leave your pulpit 
and join with me; together we will sweep the coun- 
try for Christ.’’ We can not now estimate what 


EULOGY. 257 


would have been accomplished had these two great 
apostles of the religion of faith, hope and love joined 
together, at that time, in such a powerful itiner- 
ancy. 

The religious soul feels the loss of this great soul 
and vast religious power, for we never listened to 
his voice without feeling that the Spirit of God was 
back of it! The Christ life of the man beamed in 
his eyes and throbbed in his pleading voice. He 
did not pretend to be a scholar in the higher sense 
of the word. He was a man of the people and the 
fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man was 
the cornerstone of his convictions. He once declared 
that ‘‘that the man who talks from a deep thought 
basis may get the twentieth man, but I am after the 
other nineteenth men.’’ 

Perhaps the greatest evangelistic work that was 
ever done in the world’s history was when Ira 
Sankey sang and Mr. Moody preached all over Eng- 
land, Scotland and this country. Thousands of 
people were often led to determine upon a better life 
in a single city. Many a poor, burdened soul— 
downcast and discouraged—heard his ringing words, 
‘*Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee,’’ felt 
the power of the Holy Spirit and went away happy 
and hopeful. The power of such a life no pen can 
ever describe nor imagination put into language. 
Though dead, he still lives, not only in the more 
Christ-like thought he has scattered broadcast and 
the thousands of lives he has started heavenward, 
but in the great schools he founded for boys and 
girls at Northfield, Mass. Prof. Drummond once 
wrote that ‘‘Scotland would not be to-day what it is 
had it missed the year of Moody and Sankey!”’ Such 


258 EULOGY. 


a great soul has left this life to be hailed, and wel- 
comed into God’s spiritual kingdom.—Rev. Von 
Herrlichs, Kansas City, Mo. 


I have nothing but good to say of Mr. Moody. Of 
late years he was growing rapidly in the right 
direction. ‘The tolerance which he recently evinced 
towards the higher criticism and his friendship for 
men like Prof. Henry Drummond and George Adam 
Smith, showed him to be a man of broader sympa- 
thies than one would suspect from his earlier rec- 
ord. His devotion to education and his recognition 
of its necessity were clear indications of a growth in 
the man himself. It would be rash in any man to 
suspect Mr. Moody’s entire sincerity, and as an 
expounder of the spiritual sense of the Scriptures he 
had few, if any, equals. As an evangelist, he had 
no equal whatever. Mr. Moody had the almost 
unerring instinct of a great commander of men. I 
sat one night during Mr. Moody’s hippodrome cam- 
paign in New York in the audience at the after- 
meeting. After a time I observed him beckoning 
in my direction and I looked about to see whom he 
had in mind. I concluded after a moment that he 
was beckoning to me, so I stepped up to him and 
found that he desired that I should speak to a cer- 
tain flaxen-haired German-looking man in another 
part of the audience. I did as he requested, and it 
appeared that it was a wise bringing together of 
two men, for the man seemed to me to want to hear 
precisely what I had to say. There could have 
been no explanation of the choice of me for that 
service, except a wise intuition on the part of the 
great preacher from the sight of the two faces before 


EULOGY. 259 


him, that I was the man for that particular part of 
the service. I have heard of many instances of this 
display of Mr. Moody’s clear intuition and his ability 
to adapt particular means to specific ends. His 
judgment was nearly without fault in such cases. 
While Mr. Moody was of a theological school to 
which I do not belong, and while I often felt com- 
pelled to criticise some of his methods, I have always 
had the profoundest respect for him as an honest, 
earnest and remarkably efficient preacher of the . 
gospel of Christ. He was a great organizer and 
would have made as equally a great field general as 
a leader of the forces of the church.—Rev. Judson 
Titsworth, Milwaukee, Wis. 


CHAPTER XX: 


EDITORIAL COMMENT. 


A notable life has ended with the departure of 
Dwight L. Moody to the other world. Few men, 
no matter what their opportunities or resources, 
have been able to do anything like a fair proportion 
of the good for their fellow creatures that has been 
wrought during the past twenty-five years or over 
by the dead evangelist. His life was an inspiration 
to those who knew him to do good for their fellows, 

/ His religion was broad enough to embrace human- 
ity. His daily exertions were ever in the direction 
of promoting the happiness of his fellow-man, both 
here and hereafter. 

The keynote to the success of this wonderful man 
is found in the last words spoken by him. They 
were: ‘‘I have always been an ambitious man; not 
to lay up wealth, but to find work to do.’’ If that 
were generally the animating principle of men’s 
conduct, the world would be a much happier place 
than it is. The character of the work which Mr. 
Moody was ambitious to do furnishes the secret of 
his wondrous control of men. Those who met him 
knew by instinct that his work was done with a single 
thought of their good. He gave freely of his won- 
drous powers, and when death presented to him a 
notice that the end was not far off he treated the 

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EDITORIAL COMMENT. 263 


warning with a smile andalaugh. It was nothing 
he said. He would be all right in a little while, 
and he would go on with his work. It was his work 
which concerned him, and he refused to see or count 
on anything that might take him away from it. 

The religion of this man was happiness. He was 
a living demonstration of the truth that he who lives 
rightly, for others rather than for himself, is most 
certain of happiness. Hestirred men’s souls deeply, 
because he approached them through all the best 
promptings of their nature. To get them to lead 
good lives, rather than to be faithful in the profes- 
sion of their religion; to bring them to the doing of 
good for others as well as for themselves, represented 
the end and aim of his labors. His wondrous suc- 
cess attests at once the innate disposition of ordinary 
men and women to fulfill their duty toward God 
and their neighbors and the splendid powers, splen- 
didly utilized, with which he was endowed. 

The world needs a good deal more of the religion 
of the deceased gentleman than is expounded to it. 
He cared very little for religious precept. He held 
a good story above a Scripture text in its capacity 
for appealing to the understanding and conscience 
of those with whom he had to deal. The outward 
symbols of religion had but little thought from him. 
He taught that happiness came more from well- 
doing than from well-being or from the strict 
observance of religious precept. Religion embraced 
with him happiness here and hereafter. Few such 
men appear in a generation; but they leave behind 
them effects and influences which advanced mater- 
ially the ends of the Christian religion.—St. Paul 


Globe. 
15 


264 EDITORIAL COMMENT. 


One of the hard features of a soldier’s life is the 
fact that his heart must be like adamant toward 
foes, no matter how innocent, and even sometimes 
toward his friends. He rushes like a bloodthirsty 
field upon men against whom he has not the slight- 
est feeling of personal animosity, and for whom 
under other circumstances, he would gladly do any 
kindly service in his power. He must leave a 
brother to bleed to death, or perhaps must charge 
over him, trampling out his life. He must relent- 
lessly shoot down the comrade of a score of battles 
because he fails in the pinch or proves false in a 
crisis. Call it cruel and wicked if you will, yet it is 
the way that our great world has gone struggling 
upward for 6,000 years and more; and we to-day 
enjoy so much as we have of the protection of just 
laws, keep our holiday festivities in safety and wor- 
ship God as our conscience bids us in peace, because 
men have done these things in the years of the 
past. 

The ‘‘knight of the better era’’—the man who 
fights with the pen rather than with the sword, and 
sends words and ideas instead of bullets and cannon 
ball crashing against his fellow-men, has often a lot 
no less hard than that of the soldier of the sword. 
Often must he speak words that seem harsh and ter- 
Tible because he must be ‘“‘as harsh as truth.” 
Often must his face be like a flint toward those 
whom he would gladly recognize as friends because 
he must be ‘‘as uncompromising as justice.’’ 
Kind, tender-hearted people are wounded as he 
goes charging by or over them and never perhaps 
recognize him in any other light than that in which 


EDITORIAL COMMENT. 265 


he momentarily appears to their lacerated sensibil- 
ities. 

Dwight L. Moody, the great American evangelist, 
died on Friday last. We have criticised him in 
these columns—sometimes with a terrible severity. 

We are filled with regret to-day, not that we crit- 
icised him, but that it was necessary to do so, and 
we regret it now not a whit more than when we 
wrote the most severe of the sentences. He wasa 
great man, and, measured by ordinary or even by 
extraordinary standards, he wasagoodman. Along 
certain lines of service for his fellow-men, he wrought 
magnificently. But when a great door of opportu- 
nity for a service broader and more beneficent than 
any that he had ever rendered, opened before him, 
he failed of the stature of manhood necessary to 
enter. Many great duties came to his life and he 
performed them bravely. But when a supreme 
duty appeared, when it was within his power to 
have spoken the word that would have meant 4 
mighty moral uplift for the national life of the 
whole American people; when, as we believe, the 
call came to him to lead forward for the civic regen- 
eration of the race, he flinched, lacked courage, and 
turned his back upon the duty. 

We called attention to the fault, and, so long as 
there was hope that a severe remedy might bring a 
cure, we spoke with the fierceness and ruthlessness 
demanded by the exigency. Now that the life with 
all its successes and, what seems to us its one great 
failure, is closed, we record the facts only that wis- 
dom may be justified, and we have-not in our hearts 
mor on our pen an unkind word concerning him. 
Let the man who never failed, let the man in whose 


266 EDITORIAL COMMENT. 


life there never was a fault, undertake the task of 
criticism. Untilsuch acritic is found we are silent. 

Mr. Moody, as we believe, paid a terrible penalty 
for his mistake. A trumpet that has never sounded 
anything but advance will never sound just the same 
again after it has once blown retreat, and from the 
hour that Mr. Moody failed to grasp the opportunity 
that would have made him the greatest Christian 
citizen of the world, and, instead of leading forward 
the good men of the nation, became content to fol- 
low the bad almost as blindly as their worst follow- 
ers—from that hour his power dwindled, until in 
these latter days he has gone up and down the 
country great only as a reminiscence. Mr. Moody’s 
meetings of late have not lacked numbers, have not 
lacked a certain sort of enthusiasm, but they have 
lacked POWER;; and the loss of that power that he 
used to wield was a penalty awful to contemplate. 

But he died with beautiful words upon his lips. 
“‘T have always been an ambitious man,’’ the papers 
tell us he said, ‘‘not ambitious to lay up wealth, 
but to find work to do.’”’ 

It was a great thing to have had such an impulse 
in life, a great thing even if it was not always fully 
followed. It was grand to march through the world 
to that tune, even if he sometimes did break step. 
Our faces have been stern against him. He failed 
us when the need was sore. But in the marchings 
of the future and around the bivouacs of nights to 
come, we will think of him kindly and speak of him 
gently. And some day mayhap when we have all 
been put upon with ‘‘the powers of an endless life,”’ 
we shall serve again shoulder to shoulder.—New 
Voice, Chicago. 


EDITORIAL COMMENT. 267 


Dwight L. Moody, who passed from life yester- 
day, was a remarkable person and a man of many 
friends. Much of his life was so intensely public in 
its character, and so devoted to the public’s good, 
that a more than passing notice is required as he 
moves from the stage of life’s activities to the 
shades of a perpetual rest. 

It is difficult to criticise Mr. Moody with justness, 
when one is not in entire sympathy with the 
methods he employed, with some of the teachings 
he encouraged and the customs he inaugurated. 
The first thing, however, to do is to give Mr. Moody 
credit for sincerity, for generosity, for conscientious: 
devotion to what he believed. No one doubts his 
Christianity ; no one would intimate that he failed of 
doing a vast amount of good in the past quarter of 
a century and in many parts of the world. 

Mr. Moody is understood to have been a man who 
could not, and who would not, work save as an 
independent. The recognized avenues of church 
effort, the instituted agencies already at hand, 
meant little to him, save as he could make use of 
them for the introduction of what was striking and ~ 
novel in his own plan of work. He was a great 
preacher because he preached to the masses. He 
cut loose from tradition, from established usages, 
and as a result these have in a measure been less 
available than formerly. He preached a simple, 
easily understood gospel. He made the Christ to 
seem real, and Christianity to appeal as something 
to be not only desired, but essential, absolutely 
necessary; and thousands were led through the 
personality of the man and the earnestness of his 
appeals to reform their lives. 


268 EDITORIAL COMMENT. 


No doubt many who started under the impulses 
born of his dominating potential personality fell out 
by the way when that influence had passed; but 
that has been demonstrated in every reformatory 
work since the ancient times when first “‘A sower 
went forth to sow.”’ 

Mr. Moody’s work paved the way, in no small 
measure, and we believe in this country much more 
so than in Great Britain, where he also labored, for 
the onward sweep of the Christian Endeavor 
Society’s movement, and for the introduction of that 
era of a better feeling of tolerance between churches 
of different denominations that has grown and de- 
veloped more freely during the past twenty years 
than ever before. 

The theologian who delights in theology, the 
schoolman who has always a use for the graces 
taught in the schools, the musician who finds some- 
thing in music more than rhythm and jingle, the 
poet who notes the finer meaning and reads between 
the lines,—to these Mr. Moody’s personality does 
not appeal strongly. They respect his Christian 
purpose, his untiring zeal, his unfaltering hope; 
they rejoice in all the good he has done. But they 
work differently. They may do Christ’s work for 
Christ’s sake as he did it, but not in his way. 

In the long run, it is conceded that the churches, 
not the individuals, win. Spasmodic, individual 
efforts outside of them do not long survive the alert 
personality that founded them, and when a man is 
dead who shall take up the man’s work? The 
church never dies and in her mission and her scope 
there is room for every form of service, opportunity 
for reforms made necessary by changing customs in 


EDITORIAL COMMENT. 269 


civilization, int tastes, in natural prejudices, but 
never in morals, in sacred teachings or in the great 
ends to be reached,—the uplifting of humanity and 
the salvation of the race.—Providence Telegram. 


The fear felt that the work of D. L. Moody, the 
evangelist, was ended when the news came of his 
break-down in Kansas City, has been confirmed. 
Brought back to his birthplace at Northfield, his 
physicians held out hopes of his rallying, but med- 
ical attention and the loving care bestowed on him 
by his family have counted for nothing as against 
the results of years of arduous, unsparing work. 
The pressure under which he had labored for so 
long had its inevitable effect in undermining his 
constitution, and although the news of his death yes- 
terday came with a shock of suddenness, it was not 
unexpected. To those who knew the man in his 
numberless activities, the wonder is that he was 
spared for so many years of life. 

Mr. Moody was a great evangelist, and he dida 
great work. An uwnordained and essentially popu- 
lar preacher, who felt that his commission to win 
souls was in his love for Christ and his desire to 
serve Him—he reached thousands who were not 
likely to come under the influence of any church, 
and working in and through churches he appealed 
to thousands of others, whose belief in Christianity 
he quickened from a dull acceptance of doctrine 
into a living power. Earnest in his own convic- 
tions, and gifted with a remarkable talent for enlist- 
ing the interest and sympathy of his hearers, he was 
a speaker of unusual effectiveness. Direct and sim- 
ple in his utterances, not always grammatical, fond 


270 EDITORIAL COMMENT. 


of anecdote and homely illustration, emotional, 
sometimes to an extreme—such was Dwight L. 
Moody as the leader of countless public meetings. 
He filled churches and audience rooms because the 
people believed he had a message to deliver; as for 
himself he believed that that message was of tre- 
mendous consequence. His methods have been 
criticised, but, certainly, he was not open to the 
charge of being insincere. His whole life was given 
to doing what he felt to be his highest duty. To 
this task he brought native ability, and a constantly 
increasing knowledge of the ways to make that 
ability count for the most. 

Mr. Moody’s cornerstone was the Bible. A de- 
voted student of that book, he stood for its accept- 
ance in its entirety. An unlettered man, as com- 
pared to the present day exponents of the “‘higher 
criticism,’’ he did not hesitate to preach his faith, 
and to live it. A man of the people, he understood 
how to appeal to the people; he touched human life 
at many points, in his career, and from his own ex- 
periences he drew many a striking lesson. No 
respecter of persons, or seeker after favor, his 
independent attitude attracted rather than repelled, 
and he had a marked faculty for enlisting in his 
enterprises those who, he thought, would help him 
in the greatest measure. He welcomed co-workers. 
Men of prominence in this country and from abroad 
were asked by him to address his Northfield meet- 
ings, and felt honored in being asked. For young 
men and for young women he had a special interest, 
and on them he had a special influence. He attracted 
them, and held them. His college conferences, in 
Northfield, that beautiful Massachusetts town, have 


EDITORIAL COMMENT. 271 


been positive sources of inspiration. From the 
‘‘Auditorium’’ or ‘‘Round Top’’ meetings many 
have gone, with strength and courage, to missionary 
fields, or to engage in Christian work in their home 
communities. Andof the hundreds of attendants 
on these conferences, there can surely be but few, 
who have not been impressed with Mr, Moody’s 
personality, and helped by contact with him. 

Mr. Moody was a man of essentially practical 
aims. He believed that he could do things, and he 
had remarkable success in doing them. His School 
for Boys at Mount Hermon and his School for Girls 
at Northfield are evidences of what his persistent 
efforts have accomplished; his other enterprises 
apart from his evangelistic work included Bible and 
normal training schools and conferences for Chris- 
tian workers and forstudents. Up to the time that 
he was stricken, a few weeks since, he continued 
his widely extended speaking tours. A whitening 
beard was the only apparent mark of his advancing 
years. At his last meetings in Kansas City he 
appeared at his best. His addresses were full of 
power, and as effective as ever in making converts. 

Mr. Moody did not die an old man. Bornin 
Northfield in 1837, it was only two years ago that 
he passed his sixty-first birthday. His father, a 
stone mason and farmer, died when Mr. Moody was 
achild. The mother was left in poverty, and the 
eldestsonranaway. But Mrs. Moody was a woman 
of pluck. She kept the rest of her family together 
and provided for their support. When seventeen 
years old Dwight L. Moody went to Boston to earn 
his living. He found employment in an uncle’s 
SoS shop, and early became interested in church 


272 EDITORIAL COMMENT. 


work. Butit is related that his associates thought 
him unlikely ever to become ‘‘a Christian of clear 
and decided views of gospel truth; still less to fill 
any extended sphere of public usefulness.”’ 

In 1856, when he was nineteen, he went to Chi- 
cago, and obtained a place in a shoe store. He 
joined a church and at once rented four pews for 
young men whom he intended to bringin. He 
offered to teach in a mission school, and was told 
that his services would be welcome, if he would 
bring his own pupils. The next Sunday he walked 
in at the head of eighteen ragged urchins whom he 
had found in the streets. He frequented the 
wharves, trying to convert sailors, and he did mis- 
sionary work in the saloons. His great Sunday- 
school was started in a room that had been used for 
a saloon. He soon had a thousand pupils; the 
saloon building had been found to be too small, and 
the sessions were held ina hall, Mr. Moody being 
janitor as well as instructor. All this time the 
young man kept up his business, which had come to 
be that of a traveling salesman. In 1860, when 
twenty-three years old, he made up his mind to take 
up evangelizing work exclusively. 

During the civil war Mr. Moody was employed by 
the Christian commission, and later by the Young 
Men’s Christian Association of Chicago, as a lay 
missionary. When he first gave up his regular 
business it was necessary for him to keep his ex- 
penses as low as possible; he slept on a bench in 
the Y. M. C. A. rooms, and ate the plainest food. 
Such success attended his work with the soldiers 
and in Chicago that a church for his Chicago con- 
verts was built, and he became its unordained pas- 


EDITORIAL COMMENT. 273 


tor. In 1873 Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey, the 
singer (with whose name that of the evangelist is 
inseparably associated), decided to make a trip to 
Great Britain on the invitation of two friends. 
When they arrived they found that their friends 
were dead; the evangelist and the singer were not 
known, and, at their first meeting, which was held 
at York, four persons were present. Mr. Moody 
afterwards said that it was one of the best meetings 
that he and Mr. Sankey ever held. 

The tour wasa wonderful success. The meetings 
increased in attendance and interest; at Glasgow 
30,000 people gathered in the open air to try to hear 
the evangelist, and the London meetings lasted 
four months, the total attendance being estimated 
at 2,500,000 people. On his return to the United 
States a series of great meetings were held in New 
York, Philadelphia, Boston and Mr. Moody’s hoine 
city, Chicago. During his absence his church, 
which was burned in 1871, had been rebuilt. He 
took up his work there again, making evangelistic 
trips to different parts of the country and going 
abroad a second time. He finally left Chicago for 
Northfield, where a house was given him by friends, 
and in Northfield he continued to make his home 
till his death. Of late years he had been occupied 
more exclusively in the development and eonduct 
of his successful schools, and in the direction of his 
conferences, but he spoke in various places from 
time to time; his activity was incessant. 

Mr. Moody’s tastes were simple; he lived in his 
work. He never received a salary, and he did not 
ask contributions for himself. His reputation as a 
speaker ensured a wide sale for his sermons and 


274 EDITORIAL COMMENT. 


other writings, in book form. Mr. Moody married 
a Miss Revell, and she and two sons and a daughter 
survive him. 

Dwight L. Moody put his great forces into the 
work of redemption. He wanted to help men; to 
save them. He wanted to increase the opportu- 
nities for Christian education, and he wanted to 
inspire others with the desire to aid in the spread 
of Christianity. How he accomplished his ambi- 
tions his life story shows. 

What he put his hand to he did with his might; 
the results of his work live after his death. The 
summons that his career was at an end came to him 
undoubtedly as he would have wished—when he 
was in active service.—Hartford (Conn.) Courant. 


About the only criticism of Mr. Moody that has 
appeared in print is that of Justin D. Fulton, D.D., 
in his book on the Life of Charles H. Spurgeon, the 
great English preacher. He says: 

*“Moodyism is a growth rather than a policy. It 
is the name.of a movement rather than an organiz- 
ation. It is an attempt to evangelize the millions 
without instructing them in regard to church obli- 
gations, and the necessity of observing the ordi- 
nances Christ instituted. At this point Moodyism 
allies itself with Romanism, and claims the right to 
take away from the words of the prophecy of this 
book without regard to the utterance, ‘God shall 
take away his part from the tree of life and out of 
the holy city, which are written in this book.’ 

““To prosecute this work as an evangelist, Young 
Men’s Christian Association buildings have been 
constructed, with reading-rooms and social parlors, 
and in some instances billiard rooms, where games 


EDITORIAL COMMENT. 275 


are indulged in, and almost anything calculated to 
attract, is permitted, to be followed by consecrated 
efforts to woo and win. 

‘*Moodyism, with its unsectarian ‘Young Men’s 
Christian Associations, Christian Endeavor Socie- 
ties,’ thousands of lay evangelists and its mission- 
aries, in all parts of the world, becomes without ap- 
pointment and without control, either an extraordi- 
nary help or a tremendous peril to the church life 
of the world. As at present organized it is almost 
as much outside the church life of Christianity as is 
Romanism. Is itin an alliance with Romanism in 
fact if not in theory? Moody adopts gospel methods, 
as does not Romanism; depends on the Holy Spirit 
for converting power, while Romanism trusts to 
baptismal regeneration, sacraments, priestly absolu- 
tion, and purgatorial fire for salvation. But Moody- 
ism, working with the rich, the cultured, and the 
influential, and the Salvation Army with the very 
poor, alike igno1ing the ordinances Christ instituted, 
deserve reproof for not obeying Christ. The believ- 
ing in Christ they should do, and not leave the other 
undone. 

“*Mr. Moody believes in immersion as New Testa- 
ment baptism, and, it is said, was immersed in the 
Jordan, and yet by influence and example sanctions 
infant baptism, the tap-root of baptismal regenera- 
tion on which Romanists rest for salvation. Thou- 
sands and millions imitate him. Is it safe to do so? 
Pentecost in India is an evangelist for Moodyism. 

**Shall Christians forget that the necessities of the 
times call loudly to Christians to bestir themselves 
and take the place and hold it which does mot belong 
to Young Men’s Christian Associations or any other 


276 EDITORIAL COMMENT, 


unsectarian movement. A barrel without hoops is 
as valuable as are Christians unharnessed or un- 
trained in church life. Shall the churches step to 
the front and take what belongs to them? Shall 
they let the light shine which Christ has entrusted 
to their keeping, remembering ‘that the Lord’s 
hand is not shortened, that he cannot save, nor his 
ear heavy that he cannot hear?’ We are not to 
pray that Moodyism may: do less, but that the 
churches as Christ organized them may do more 
than ever before, and measure up to the untold re- 
sponsibilities which are committed to their keeping. 
Moodyism, without asserting it and, perhaps, with- 
out designing it, is as antagonistic to the system of 
faith that makes belief and baptism the source of 
its power and the feature of its life, as is Romanism. 
““Recently it has come out that Mr. Moody gave 
money to build a Roman Catholic house of worship 
in Northfield. Some knew this years ago, and there 
were those who went and saw the evangelist in his 
home, and endeavored to persuade him to turn his 
attention to the need of telling the unvarnished 
truth concerning Romanism. In vain. No distinc- 
tive anti-Romanist has been welcome to Northfield. 
It is because Moodyism averages the public Christ- 
ian sentiment of the hour, that truth-telling is not 
in order. 
_ “There is need of Mr. Moody’s enthusiasm and 
generalship in this work for Romanists. Let him 
realize their ruin without Christ, and it would stir 
him. It1is not the evangelist alone that is needed, 
but all that he can influence, and all that influences 
him Let prayer arise that the Holy Spirit will 
cause him and others to realize the value of the 


’ 


EDITORIAL COMMENT. 277 


souls of Romanists, and give them no rest until the 
outpouring shall come upon undone Roman Catho- 
lics, causing them to cry out, ‘Men and brethren, 
what must we do to be saved?’ God can do this in 
answer to prayer, and can cause the great evangelist 
to lead in the work of rescuing the lost from the 
night of their thraldom and bring them to the light 
- of an eternal day.’’ 


CHAPTER XXI. 


MEMORIAL. 


An eloquent and touching sermon was delivered 
by Rev. Henry H. Stebbins, at Central Church, 
Rochester, N. Y., as a memorial to Dwight L. 
Moody, December 31, 1899. The songs and psalms 
were the same as those used at the evangelist’s 
funeral, and the entire service was a memorial to him 
who with his last breath said: “‘Is this dying? 
Then death is bliss!’’ Dr. Stebbins said: 

‘I take for my text this morning the first words 
that occurred to me, when I learned that Dwight L. 
Moody had gone hence to be here nomore. His 
death, like a magnet, has attracted numerous ex- 
pressions of Scripture singularly pertinent to the 
man whose departure we mourn. 

‘*We associate with him words like these: ‘Stead- 
fast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of 
the Lord.’ He ‘went about doing good.’ ‘He had 
compassion on the multitude.’ ‘A friend of sin- 
ners.’ ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth.’ ‘I 
know whom I have believed.’ ‘By the grace of God 
Iam what I am.’ ‘Though I walk through the 
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.’ 

‘‘They tell us that among the floral designs at 
Mr. Moody’s funeral was that of an open Bible on 


the one side of which was ‘Victory, I Corinthians _ 


278 


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Copyright, 1900, by Robt. O. Law. 
MOODY BIBLE INSTITUTE, CHICAGO. 


Hundreds of Bible students assemble here daily for the purpose of gleaning scriptural 
knowledge. 








MEMORIAL. 281 


15:55-57,, and on the other side: ‘II Timothy, 
4:7-8.’ 

‘‘So we might go on, enumerating passages of 
Scripture suggested by Mr. Moody’s death because 
Mr. Moody’s life was in such close touch with so 
much of the spirit and the letter of God’s Word. 
And this brings me at once to what appeals to me 
as one of the four cardinal features of Mr. Moody’s 
phenomenal life—his attachment to God’s Word. 
Right here the conviction smites me of how he must 
have reveled in the 119th Psalm, which plays so 
many variations on the theme of God's Word. 

‘*“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light 
unto my path. My heart standeth in awe of Thy 
word.’ 

‘**T rejoice at Thy word as one that findeth great 
spoil, Thy word is very pure; therefore Thy ser- 
vant loveth it. Oh, how love I Thy law; it is my 
meditation all the day. How sweet are Thy words 
unto my taste! yea,sweeter than honey to my mouth.’ 

*“Mr. Moody’s creed about the Bible was that all 
Scripture was given by inspiration of God and is 
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction 
in righteousness. And he believed that holy men 
of God spake as they were moved by the Holy 
Ghost. He held fast the faith once delivered to 
the saints. 

“In the handling of the Bible—and how intelli- 
gently, skilfully, reverently and affectionately he 
handled it—in handling the Bible he was a literalist 
rather than a believer in the allegory and fable 
theories of Scripture. He believed that the whale 
swallowed Jonah; that the serpent tempted the 


woman. He believed the story of the deluge. He 
16 


282 MEMORIAL. 


believed that the water was turned into wine. And 
he believed so, not because he was artificial in his 
understanding of the Bible, nor because he was not 
learned in all the wisdom of the schools. Indeed 
some of the most learned men kept company with 
Mr. Moody as a literalist. I recall one, an eminent 
scholar, who was on the American committee of 
revisers of the Bible, and who to the day of his 
death believed that the world was created in six 
days of twenty-four hours each. Mr. Moody’s atti- 
tude toward the Bible is well illustrated in the fol- 
lowing bit of experience he related: ‘A man came 
to me with a difficult passage in the Bible the other 
day and said: ‘‘Mr. Moody, what do you do with 
that?’’ ‘Idonot doanything with it.” ‘‘Howdo you 
understand it?’’ ‘Ido not understand it.’ ‘‘How do 
you explain it?’’ ‘I do not explainit.’ ‘‘What do 
you do with it?’’ ‘I do not do anything.’ ‘‘You do 
not believe it, do you?’’ ‘Oh, yes, I believe it. 
‘There are lots of things I do not understand, but 
I believe them. I do not know anything about 
higher mathematics, but I believe in them. I do 
not understand astronomy, but I believe in astron- 
omy. Can you tell me why the same kind of food 
turns into flesh, fish, hair, feathers, hoofs, finger- 
nails, according as it is eaten by one animal or 
another? A man told me a while ago he could not 
believe a thing he had never seen. I said: ‘‘Man, 
did you ever see your brain? Did you ever notice 
that the things men cavil most about are the very 
things on which Christ has set His seal?”’ 
‘*‘Doubtless one secret of Mr. Moody's power as a 
preacher was his unshaken faith in God’s word. 


His motto seemed to be: ‘I believe, and therefore I 
a 


MEMORIAL. 283 


speak.’ His ‘Thus saith the Lord’ was freighted 
with such intense, absorbing conviction, that the 
people heard and wondered and were under convic- 
tion, were converted unto God or confirmed in the 
faith. Ss 

‘‘One reason why such unprecedented multitudes 
thronged to hear him—it is said that for nearly six 
years Mr. Moody’s audiences, afternoons and eve- 
nings, averaged five thousand—one reason, I say, 
why so many thronged to hear him was that he 
spake as one having authority. 

‘“*Why do you go to hear Moody?’ said a lawyer 
scornfully to a fellow club member; ‘you don’t 
believe as he does?’ ‘No, but he believes what he 
preaches with all his heart, and it is well to meet 
such a manin these days of doubt and uncertainty.’ 

‘“The second cardinal feature of Mr. Moody’s life 
was his devotion to prayer. Much as he set by the 
Bible, he seemed to set more by prayer. For 
prayer seemed to bring him face to face with God. 
His prayer was talk with God, even as friend talks 
with friend. Far into the night, or rising a long 
while before day, he communed with God. 


“““They that seek the throne of grace, 
Find that throne in every place.’ 


“Tt was singularly true of him. He took every- 
thing to Godin prayer. Helived in an atmosphere 
of prayer that fulfilled Paul’s precept: ‘Pray with- 
out ceasing.’ He was an impressive illustration of 
the assurance: ‘They that wait on the Lord shall 
renew their strength. They shall mount up with 
wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary, 
they shall walk and notfaint.’ Prayer was Moody’s 
vital breath. 


284 MEMORIAL. 


““"' Twas Moody’s native air; 
His watchword at the gate of death, 
He entered heaven with prayer. 


‘“‘A third feature of Mr. Moody’s life was his pro- 
digious activity. He was active in season, out of 
season. He outworked any and all who were 
associated with him. For more than forty years he 
has been indefatigable in the promotion of the 
Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. We think of 
him, and justly, as the great evangelist of the 
century. It is interesting to trace the evolution of 
his evangelistic spirit from the germ of his thorough 
conversion to God, to godliness and to godly ser- 
vice. 

“It was in May, ’56, that he joined the Mt. Ver- 
non Congregational church in Boston. In the fall 
of that year he went to Chicago and served as sales- 
man in the shoe business. Diligent in business, he 
was fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. He joined 
the Plymouth Congregational church of Chicago, 
and his entrance into that church was abundant. 

‘‘He rented four pews and kept them filled with 
young men and boys—a splendid idea for some 
young man or young men of this church. Mr. 
Moody asked for a Sunday-school class. He was 
told he would be welcome to teach any class he 
chose to collect. Thenext Sunday he marched into 
the school at the head of eighteen ragged boys. 
Later he opened a mission of his own in an empty 
tavern. The school grew so that more commodious 
quarters had to be secured. Mr. Moody procured 
over sixty teachers for the school, the average 
attendance of which was 650. In 1860, Mr. Moody 
gave up all other business and concentrated his 


MEMORIAL. 285 


energies upon distinctly Christian work. He lived 
on as little as possible. Hehadnohome. His bed 
was a bench in the Y. M. C. A. Shortly he became 
a city missionary, and as the fruit of his labors, in 
1863 a church building was put up. In 1865 he was 
elected president of the Chicago Y. M. C. A. 

‘“Mr. Moody’s evangelistic work during the war 
was conspicuous and prolific. In 1867 he went abroad 
for the first time, and againin 1873. You know, in 
general terms, of his blessed work, aided by Mr. 
Sankey, whom he called into the service about 1871 
—in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Mr. Moody’s 
ministry abroad marks an era in the religious life 
and in the Church of God of Great Britain. Then 
there were the great hippodrome meetings in New 
York and the evangelistic campaigns in Boston, 
Cleveland, Brooklyn, Chicago, San Francisco, St. 
Louis. Indeed, nearly every city of any size, North, 
South, East and West, in this country has its record 
of Moody meetings. It is estimated that Mr. 
Moody, during his evangelistic work, addressed not 
fewer than 100,000,000 persons. 

““We further associate Mr. Moody with the sum- 
mer conferences at Northfield, that had their origin 
in his invitation to a few friends to his home for 
prayer and Bible study. His evangelistic influence 
has been reinforced, extended and made permanent 
by the press. E 

‘Three or four years ago he established a colpor- 
tage association for the dissemination of good liter- 
ature, and hundreds of thousands of books have been 
sent to prison cells home and foreign missionary 
fields and ariny camps, in addition to a large circula- 
tion in city and country homes. He also started 


286 MEMORIAL. 


two magazines devoted to evangelistic work. I 
count more than a score of books, the fruit of his 
labor on the platform, in his spiritual sanctum and 
elsewhere. 

‘*But Mr. Moody, plain man as he was, not versed 
in the wisdom of the schools, has been a great edu- 
cator. The summer conferences at Northfield have 
been in the best sense educational for college men, 
young women, andthe laity in general. Four institu- 
tions were under his immediate direction. Besides, 
the influence of Mr. Moody upon the pulpit, upon 
theology, upon the religious life, upon a broad- 
gauged Catholic Christianity has been immeasur- 
able. Not only was Mr. Moody the greatest evan- 
gelist since Whitefield, and a most aggressive and~ 
practical educator, but a great builder. 

“‘T find the following statement in a recent number 
of the New York Tribune: ‘His first building was 
the Illinois Street church in Chicago, erected about 
1858, for the shelter of his mission school, and the 
church which grew out of it. His second building 
enterprise was the Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion building in Chicago, erected in 1866, the first 
commodious edifice for Young Men’s Christian Asso- 
ciation purposes in this country. His third enter- 
prise was the re-erection of the first Young Men’s 
Christian Association building, destroyed by fire. 
This also was destroyed in the great fire of 1871, 
and again rebuilt, mainly through Mr. Moody’s 
efforts. The other Young Men’s Christian Associa- 
tion buildings in America, for which money was 
raised by Mr. Moody, and in whose erection he was 
more or less conspicuous, were at New York, Bos- 


MEMORIAL, 287 


ton, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Baltimore and 
Scranton. 

‘**In Great Britain there were erected by Mr 
Moody’s personal efforts, or from the inspiration of 
his works; Christian Union building, Dublin; Chris- 
tian Institute building, Glasgow; Carubber’s Close 
mission, Edinburgh; the story of which is not only 
interesting, but romantic; Conference hall, Strat- 
ford; Down Lodge hall, Wandsworth, London, and 
the Young Men’s Christian Association building 
Liverpool. 

““*In addition to the above are twenty or more 
buildings at Northfield, Mass. ; the Chicago Avenue 
church and Bible Institute buildings, Chicago.’ 

**Such, in barest outline, is a memorandum of the 
work and labor of love in which he was always 
abounding, and that, too, notwithstanding that of 
late years he was compassed by the infirmity of a 
weak heart. 

*“When challenged to run a foot race at a Sunday- 
school picnic in Northfield a few years ago he said: 
‘I have heart disease, and would fall dead if I should 
make such an effort.’ At the same time he was 
administering the multiform interests that absorbed 
mind and heart and time. 

‘The fourth cardinal feature of Mr. Moody’s life 
was his fellowship with the Father, with His Son, 
Jesus Christ, and with the Holy Ghost. This was 
the supreme reality in Mr. Moody’s life. Enoch 
walked with God; so did Moody. His conversation 
or citizenship was in heaven. That fellowship was 
the mainspring in the mechanism of his character 
and career. It was that that made him so devoted 
to God’s Word that stimulated him to pray and that 


288 MEMORIAL. 


it was made him abound so in the work of the Lord, 
and made him so assured about the great salvation 

‘**My mind is made up,’* he said one time, ‘on the 
question proposed, namely, the relative merits of 
Christianity and infidelity. Somebody once asked 
Charles Sumner to hear the other side of slavery. 
‘Hear the other side?’’ he replied. ‘“‘There is no 
other side. I would as soon discuss the merits of 
Christianity and infidelity.’’ ‘No one who studied his- 
tory,’ said Mr. Moody, ‘need hesitate in answering 
the question. I know what the Lord Jesus Christ 
has done for me during the last forty years since I 
trusted Him Let the members of your club accept 
Christ as their personal Saviour, and they need not 
waste time discussing such a question. If I hada 
remedy that never failed to cure disease for forty 
years, I should not stop to compare its merits with 
another remedy.’ 

“It was his fellowship with Christ that made him 
determine to know nothing save Jesus Christ and 
Him crucified. It was because the Spirit taught 
him and brought all things to his remembrance that 
He was so instructed, unto the kingdom of Heaven, 
that He was able to bring forth out of the treasury 
of truth things new and old. It was his nearness to 
Christ that brought him so near to the Christian, 
and that raised him so far above the plane of denom- 
inationalism. It was his fellowship with Christ that 
inspired him with such a perennial passion for souls. 
His fellowship with Christ kept him humble. 

‘*By contrast to the ineffable holiness of the Lord, 
he exclaimed with Peter: ‘Depart from me, for I 
am a sinful man, O Lord.’ His fellowship with God 
made him to an almost unparalleled degree fearless, 


MEMORIAL. 289 


unconstrained and at home in the presence of 
princes, or of men mighty for wealth, wisdom or 
social rank. His attitude was never apologetic. 
He was a righteous man who, in the delivery of his 
message, however faulty it might be judged by the 
canons of rhetoric or good literary form, was bold 
asalion. He walked before God as God told Abra- 
ham to do. No man came between him and God. 
He saw no man save Jesus only. To his own loving 
and beloved Master he stood or fell. Consummate 
achievement! 

“This was what Dr. Pentacost meant who wrote 
me in a letter from Northfield: 

** ‘Dear old Moody is under ground. During his 
life I have never known a man so very much above 
ground ashe. Peace be to his soul.’ 

“It was Mr. Moody’s fellowship with God that 
kept him so true to himself. He was simply and 
grandly natural. His tact, his rare sagacity, his 
wealth of saving common sense, his superb adminis- 
trative ability stood out in the bolder relief because 
of the God who wroughtinhim. Let God have free 
course in a man’s life as he did in Mr. Moody’s and 
that man’s personality is wonderfully developed. 
He wears no affected air, he does not talk in one 
tone and preach in another and pray in another. 
He is not one sort of man on Sunday and another 
sort of man the rest of the week, but he is simply 
natural all the while. The man who lives near- 
est Christ lives nearest to his own individuality. 
He who is likest to Christ is most unlike other 
Christians is truest to himself as distinguished from 
other men. This was why, from first to last, Moody 
was Moody. At home or abroad, in private or in 


290 MEMORIAL. 


public, before ten or ten thousand, he was simply 
Moody. 

““The picture you have seen of him in the papers 
since his death is not that of the preacher but of the 
man in his wagon with reins and whip in hand, 
wearing a soft hat and in everyday negligee dress. 
There was but one Moody in the world. It was 
God working in him that wrought out his individu- 
ality. 

‘‘Such was the man—devoted to the Bible, a man 
who prayed to God always, who wrought inces- 
santly, diversely, unweariedly, and with superlative 
fruitfulness, and whose life was hid with Christ in 
God. . 

‘Then came the end, the end of the beginning. 
‘God is calling me,’ he said. He had the ear to 
hear. And he had the eye to see. ‘I see earth 
receding. Heaven is opening. If this is dying, it 
is bliss.’ 

“The following account of the funeral was sent 
me by one of the honorary pall bearers: 

‘* “The entire services at the funeral of Mr. Moody 
was full of a spirit of triumph. Within a few 
moments of his departure he had exclaimed: ‘“‘Is 
this death? Thisis bliss!’’ He was indeed an exult- 
ant victor over the last enemy. As thirty-two Mt. 
Hermon boys carried what was mortal of him 
through the streets of Northfield from his home to the 
church and later from the church, past the house 
where he was born and where his mother not long 
ago died, to his place of rest on Round Top, the same 
consciousness of victory—the victory of faith in 
Christ—was strongly felt by every spectator.’ 

‘‘During the funeral service in the church, as his 


MEMORIAL. 291 


pastor, Dr. Schofield, President Weston, Dr. Chap- 
man, Dr. Wharton, Dr. Pierson and John Wana- 
maker followed one another in impressive testi- 
mony concerning the friend, the guide, the teacher, 
the comforter, the revealer of Christ whom they 
had found in this man, the note of sorrow and of 
mourning was lost in the loftier note of the triumph- 
ant life of faith and love and unselfish service, which 
these addresses vividly presented. 

“The venerable President Weston pronounced 
him the greatest religious character of the nine- 
teenth century. What most contributed to give him 
this pre-eminence was the possession by him—so far 
beyond others—of that life, concerning which Jesus 
said: ‘I am come that ye might have life and that 
ye might have it more abundantly.’ 

“Dr. Chapman said: 

***Tt was through Mr. Moody’s agency that I be- 
came a Christian, through his influence I entered 
the ministry and when my ministry was poor and 
unfruitful he was the messenger from God through 
whom I received the spiritual impulse and blessing 
which has given any fruitfulness to my work as 
evangelist, minister and pastor. Very often I have 
sought him at critical times for counsel and always 
received from him the brotherly sympathy and help 
I needed.’ 

‘**Mr. Moody’s death appeals to me as a change of 
base from one scene of service to another. Accord- 
ingly it is, as I said at the outset of this sermon, that 
the words that first came into mind after hearing of 
Mr. Moody’s death were: ‘They serve him day and 
night.’ 


292 MEMORIAL. 


‘“Tennyson in his Ode on the death of the Duke 
of Wellington, sings: 

‘‘*We doubt not that for one so true, 
There’s other nobler work to do 
Than when he fought at Waterloo.’ 

“So with Mr. Moody. 

“‘Indeed, I remember his saying, ‘By and by you 
will hear people say, Mr. Moody is dead. Don’t 
you believe a word of it. At that very moment I 
shall be more alive than Iam now. I shall then 
truly begin to live. I was born of the flesh in 1837. 
I was born of the Spirit in 1856. That which is 
born of the flesh may die. That which is born of 
the Spirit will live forever.’ 

“IT have thought of Mr. Moody as seeing Jesus 
face to face, whom having not seen, he so dearly 
loved. I have pictured the great multitude whom 
no man can number, whom he has been instru- 
mental in saving and serving, as greeting him and 
as sitting down with him in the Kingdom of God on 
high. 

‘‘T have thought of him as paying his public trib- 
ute to the Christ to whom he was so beholden, and 
as renewedly consecrating himself to his service. I 
have thought of him as telling to the saints in glory 
what the grace of God has done for him and through 
him. 

“T have imagined a mammoth testimony meet- 
ing presided over by Mr. Moody, at which new 
songs of redemption have been sung, and where 
hearts out of their abundance have testified to what 
God, through dear Mr. Moody, has done for them. 

‘‘And if the old, old story has yet to be told any- 
where in God’s universe except on this earth, by 


MEMORIAL. 293 


those who have passed from earth to heaven, I am 
sure that Dwight L. Moody’s commission will not 
long be delayed. 

“‘His career, so remarkable as evangelist, edu- 
cator, builder, above all, and through all, and in all, 
as man of God and servant of Jesus Christ, will 
make him fitter than ever to engage in the service 
of heaven. His new environment, the presence of 
the King, his fuller, clearer vision, the glorious 
freedom he enjoys from all restrictions, must make 
of the old, old story of Jesus and his love, which he 
delighted so to tell on earth, the new, new story of 
redemption it will be his supernal satisfaction to 
relate. 

“Would that the young men of Rochester might 
have had their heart’s desire gratified by hearing 
him as they confidently anticipated. But their loss 
_is his gain and the gain of all to whom he has yet 
to minister. 

““May God bless to us the departure out of this 
life of His good and faithful servant, by intensifying * 
our devotion to the Bible, by making us more prayer- 
ful, by stimulating us to more fruitful service, and 
by attracting us to a closer walk with God.’ And 
may what we are and what we do on earth qualify 
us for higher attainment and larger achievement in 
heaven.”’ 


CHAPTER XXII. 





THE LAST OF THE GREAT GROUP. 


BY REY. DR. NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS IN ‘‘THE 
INTERIOR.”’ 


When long time hath passed, some historian, re- 
calling the great epochs and religious teachers of 
our century, will say, ‘‘There were four men sent 
forth by God: their names—Charles Spurgeon, 
Phillips Brooks, Henry Ward Beecher, and Dwight 
L. Moody.’’ Each was a herald of good tidings; 
each was a prophet of a new social and religious 
order, and each made a permanent contribution to 
the Christian church; while of all it may be said 
* their sermons were translated into many tongues 
and their names known in every town and city 
where the English language is spoken. For our 
instruction, rebuke and inspiration God hath raised 
up other preachers, representing a high order of in- 
tellect, marked eloquence, and permanent influence; 
but as to the first order of greatness, there have 
been perhaps these four—no more. God girded 
each of these prophets for his task, and taught him 
how to ‘‘dip his sword in heaven.’’ In characterizing 
the message of these men we say that Spurgeon was 
expositional, Phillips Brooks devotional, Henry 
Ward Beecher prophetic and philosophical, while 
Dwight L. Moody was a herald rather than teacher, 

294 


LAST OF THE GROUP. 295 
. : 
addressing himself to the common people—the un- 


churched multitudes. The symbol of the great Eng- 
lish preacher is a lighted lamp, the symbol of Brooks 
a flaming heart, the symbol of Beecher an orchestra 
of many instruments, while Mr. Moody was a 
trumpet, sounding the advance, sometimes through 
inspiration and sometimes through alarm. 

And our sorrow to-day is the more, in that the last 
of these giants has gone down to the valley and dis- 
appeared behind the thick shadow. Oft in hours of 
gloom and doubt, full oft in days when wickedness 
seemed enthroned in high places, when the rich 
seemed to be selfish in their strength, and the poor 
without an advocate in high places, when good men 
seemed weakness and leaders seemed a lie, in our 
depression we have turned our thoughts toward the 
three prophets, in the English Tabernacle, in Trin- 
ity and in Plymouth, or toward the evangelist and 
friend of the people, and have been comforted by 
the mere thought that things were a little safer be- 
cause these four men were in their appointed places. 
The first three were commanders, each over his 
_ Tegiment, and worked from a fixed center, but the 
evangelist was the leader of a flying band, who 
went everywhither into the enemy’s country,seeking 
conquests of peace and righteousness. Be the rea- 
sons what they may, the common people gladly 
heard the great evangelist. In his death, the un- 
churched classes have lost their best friend. Fallen 
now their tower of strength. Changed, too, the 
very face of our moral landscape. For nearly forty 
years the multitudes have pressed and thronged into 
the great halls and churches to hear this herald 


296 LAST OF THE GROUP. 


speak of duty, sin, salvation, and God's love in 
Christ. But disappearing from our sight he is not 
dead. While life continues, for multitudes he will 
remain a cool spring flowing in a desert, the covert 
of a rock in time of sorrow. ; 
For the republic, the roll-call of self-made men is 
long and brilliant. Orators like Clay come in from 
the corn-fields, statesmen like Webster come from 
the bleak hillsides of New England, presidents like 
Lincoln come forth from the university of rail-split- 
ting, the inventors, merchants, and editors come in 
from rural districts and villages, and all are the 
architects of their own fortunes. But among all this 
group of men whose life in low estate began on a 
simple village green, none is more thrilling in its 
struggles, more picturesque in its contrasts, and more 
pathetic in its defeats and victories than that of the 
great evangelist. An orphan at four, one of the 
props of the family at nine, at nineteen a clerk ina 
shoe store of Chicago, at twenty-three the founder 
of a Young Men’s Christian Association, where he 
slept on the benches because he had no bed, and 
bought a loaf at the bakery because he had no money 
for board. At twenty-four, the superintendent of a 
Sunday-school in a deserted saloon, where his pupils 
were drunkards, tramps, ragamuffins, mingled with 
street waifs and boys from anewsboys’ home. At 
forty, the most widely-talked-about man in Great 
Britain, where his friends were college presidents 
and professors, authors, editors, statesmen, scien- 
tists, like Drummond and Lord Kelvin. Returning 
home, in Philadelphia, he found that merchants had 
erected for his meetings a building seating ten thou- 
sand people, an event that was repeated in New 








Oopyright, 1900, by Robt, O. Law. 


LIBRARY. 


BIBL INSTITUTE 


The shelves are filled with hundreds of volumes personally 


selected by Mr, 


This is a favorite resort for Bible Institute students, 


Moody. 





POS ae 


LAST OF THE GROUP. 299 


York, Boston, Chicago, and many other great cities 
in our land. At fifty-three he founded a training 
school for young men and women in Chicago that 
has sent out fifteen hundred workers, a school for 
young men at East Northfield, and for young women 
at Mount Hermon, institutions that now have for 
their work more than a score of great buildings. 
Thrilling, indeed, this story. It repeats the expe- 
rience of young David, who passed from the sheeps- 
cote to the king’s throne, and the scepter of uni- 
versal sway. 

‘‘Where were the hidings of his power?’’ you ask. 
From nothing, nothing comes. Blood tells. A 
great ancestry explains a great man. The time was 
when men thought God called the prophet. But 
when God wants a John the Baptist, he calls not the 
son, but the father and mother, and they ordain the 
child in the cradle, and before the cradle. When 
the Hebrews were in bondage in Egypt, one mother 
there was, brave enough to dare the king, and hide 
her babe in an ark, amidst the bulrushes, and the 
mother’s courage repeated itself in the greatest of 
jurists, Moses. Hannah was a dreamer who loved 
solitude, and walked the hills alone with God; whose 
eyes ‘‘were homes of silent prayer,” and her relig- 
ious genius repeated itself in her son Samuel, one of 
the greatest of the judges. What was unique in 
Timothy, Paul tells us, was first of all unique in his 
mother Lois, and his grandmother Eunice. And the 
greatest evangelist since Whitefield had his power 
through the ordainment of a great ancestry. He 
was of the best old New England stock. His father 
had the fine old Puritan fiber, and his mother, wid- 


owed with her little flock about her, exhibits almost 
17 


300 LAST OF THE GROUP. 


unparalleled heroism, courage, and hope in the hour 
of suffering and trouble. For the tides of power in 
this man flow down from the ancestral hills. Among 
his birth gifts was the gift of perfect health and a 
perfect body, with stores of energy that seemed well- 
nigh inexhaustible. 

His, also, was the gift of common sense, a mind 
hungry for knowledge, a reason that saw clearly or 
saw not at all; moral earnestness, sincerity, self- 
reliance, courage, wit, humor, pathos, an intuitive 
knowledge of men, the genius for organization. 
Like Isaiah, he had a quenchless passion for right- 
eousness. Like Daniel, he had the courage of his 
convictions in the face of fierce opposition. Like 
Paul, his enthusiasm for men made him the herald 
of righteousness to foreign nations. Like Bernard, 
his was the crusader’s heart, organizing his hosts 
against passion, ignorance and sin. Without the 
eloquence of Spurgeon, without the fine culture of 
Phillips Brooks, without the supreme genius of Mr. 
Beecher, Mr. Moody was a herald, a man sent forth 
from God, who called the unchurched classes to re- 
pentance, who flamed forth on them the love of God 
in Christ. For nearly six years, it is said that Mr. 
Moody’s audiences averaged five thousand, each 
afternoon and evening. A record that has never 
been surpassed in all the history of evangelism. 
‘‘Our bishops,’’ said the London Telegraph, ‘‘have 
back of them a state income, great cathedrals, a 
small army of paid helpers and musicians, bnt where 
our bishops have reached tens this man has reached 
hundreds.’’ 

If preaching is man making and man mending, 
then Mr. Moody was a veritable prince among 


LAST OF THE GROUP. 201 


preachers. In view of the great audiences of fif- 
teen thousand people that thronged into, or about, 
the hall in Kansas City, where he preached his last 
sermon, all must confess that no preacher in the 
land since Mr. Beecher’s time was comparable to 
Mr. Moody in personal popularity, or in power to 
hold the masses. Any student skilled in the art of 
reading human nature, who has been upon the plat- 
form beside the great evangelist, and while listen- 
ing to his words has noted their effects upon the 
faces of the vast audience before him, must make 
haste to affirm that Mr. Moody knew the human 
mind and heart as a skillful musician knows his in- 
strument, and sweeps all the banks of keys before 
him. In the addresses that were given no element 
of great speech was lacking. Mr. Moody moved his 
audiences from tears to laughter; for laughter and 
tears are outer signs of inner thoughts and feelings. 
Life is determined by the emotions of the heart 
quite as much as by the arguments of the head. No 
matter how scholarly or intellectual the preacher 
may be, he is at best a second-rate preacher whose 
truth burns with a cold, white light. Truth in the 
hands of an intellectual philosopher who has found 
his way into the pulpit, cuts with a keen edge, in- 
deed, but truth in Mr. Moody’s hands has been 
heated red hot, and the edge of his sword burns as 
well as cuts; like the Word of God, dividing be- 
tween the joints and marrow, and separating the 
sinner from his evil deeds. 

No misconception can be greater than to suppose 
that Mr. Moody: has succeeded in spite of his lack of 
theological preparation. My old professor of dog- 
matic theology criticised me harshly during my 


302 LAST OF THE GROUP. 


student days for going to hear Mr. Moody on Sun- 
day morning. Because the great evangelist was a 
layman, and unordained, this distinguished theolo- 
gian said that he declined to attend any of Mr. 
Moody’s meetings during his great campaign in a 
city in which this professor had formerly resided. 
It is true that Mr. Moody had never crossed the 
threshold of college or theological seminary. More- 
over, in his enthusiasm he often used the vernacu- 
lar, homely idioms, and in every sermon broke some 
of the laws of grammar or of rhetoric. But noth- 
ing is risked in the statement that it was a great 
good fortune for him that he never found his way 
into a theological seminary. Nevertheless, he was 
a past master in his chosen art. He reached men, 
not because he knew so little about preaching, but 
because he knew so much. Could some scholar take 
a volume of Mr. Moody’s sermons, and condense his 
thoughts, methods, appeals and illustrations into a 
volume of homiletics, the book would be so large 
and comprehensive that the ordinary work on the 
art of preaching would not make an introduction 
thereto. Taken all in all, for the work of an evan- 
gelist, this man represents more culture, and more 
thought about the methods of reaching the common 
people than any other man in his generation. To 
him it has been given to meet all the great preach- 
ers of the day, and to work with them. His was 
also the power of selection from each Spurgeon, or 
Maclaren, or Brooks, or Beecher, and from each he 
selected his special gift and excellence. Having 
spent eight months of each year in working with 
the foremost pastors at home and abroad, he has 
had four months in summer for study and confer- 


LAST OF THE GROUP. 303 


ence. Those who have seen Mr. Moody’s library 
know that this man has been a student of books as 
wellas men. Superficial, indeed, the judgment of 
those who think that Mr. Moody was without edu- 
cation, or training, or logic, or knowledge of preach- 
ing as a science. With him preaching became a 
fine art, an art that conceals the art. Did our the- 
ological seminaries multiply their three years of 
study by two, they could not hope to equip their 
students as long study and experience with men and 
books have equipped Mr. Moody. The methods the 
great evangelist adopted gather up the experience 
of twenty years of working with the greatest preach- 
ers of England, Scotland and America. Perhaps of 
all the arts and occupations in our age, not one is 
comparable to the art of preaching. It demands the 
highest talent, the deepest culture, tireless practice 
and complete consecration And happy the gener- 
ation to whom God gave this herald of good tidings, 
this friend of the common people, this messenger to 
the unchurched multitudes, who followed him as 
their leader along those paths that lead to prosper- 
ity and peace, to Christ, man’s Saviour, to God, 
man’s Father. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


THE NORTHFIELD SCHOOLS. 


The vicinity of Northfield, the seat of Mr. Moody’s 
labors, was first settled in 1673, and twice within a 
few years the town was depopulated by raids and 
massacres by the Mohawks and other Indian tribes. 
The third and permanent settlement was made in 
1713. The natural resources of the town were de- 
veloped. Bricks were made from the clay, a grist 
mill erected and tar kilns established. A malt house 
was erected in 1721. The people were constantly 
menaced by Indians, but the settlement, notwith- 
standing all that, had an average of healthy growth. 

When the Chicago fire destroyed Mr. Moody’s 
church and home, his plans were changed and he 
went to England. On his return from Europe he 
visited the old homestead of Northfield and deter- 
mined to make his future home there. While 
enjoying the contentment which came from seeing 
old friends, recalling old memories, and surveying 
as beautiful a pastoral picture as can be seen in that 
section of the country, he developed the plans for 
his school at that place. His principal idea was to 
plan a school where the girls in the isolated homes 
on the mountain sides might receive a careful train- 
ing in the Bible at a moderate expense. The first 
tract of land for this purpose was bought by Mr. 

304 


THE NORTHFIELD SCHOOLS. 305 


Moody in 1878 and consisted of 270 acres, and to this 
was added 16 acres opposite Mr. Moody’s house, 
that same year. Thenext year the work was begun 
on a school-house. The school opened November 
3, 1879, with twenty-five pupils. In 1880 the first 
dormitory, known as East Hall, was opened and 
was at once filled with girls. Banar Hall was erected 
and shortly after was burned. Marquand Hall was 
dedicated in 1885. Other buildings followed until 
the school reached its present proportion. 

Northfield has been greatly improved since Mr. 
Moody began his work there. The desolate and 
rock-covered hills have taken on a coating of velvet 
turf. Well built roads wind through the grounds 
and between the different buildings, and shade trees 
and shrubbery have been planted where they would 
improve the view. 

The land not utilized for lawns, building purposes 
and roads, has been placed under the care of practi- 
cal farmers, who have made it yield sufficient pro- 
ducts to furnish a large portion of the supplies used 
in the schools. There are also a number of horses, 
of which Mr. Moody was very fond, he being consid- 
ered an excellent judge of horse flesh. For this 
reputation he has frequently been assailed by his 
critics, and at one time the story went the rounds 
that he had paid as much as $2,800 for a finely gaited 
animal that caught hisadmiration. He allowed the 
story to go uncontradicted for some weeks under the 
impression that people would not believe it, and 
when he did refer to the matter he said that he had 
not paid $2,800 for the horse but had only paid a 
little less than one-tenth of that amount. 

The expenses of boarding and tuition at the Semi- 


306 THE NORTHFIELD SCHOOLS. 


nary from the time of its founding has been $100.00 
ayear. Allthe housework is done by the students, 
still the sum paid for tuition only can pay about 
one-half the expenses, the other half is met by the 
income of a small endowment, and by royalties from 
the sale of books and by contributions. 

The principal text book is of course the Bible, and 
one of the obligations of attendance there is that a 
pupil must recite from it twice a week. 

Immediately in front of the porch where Mr. 
Moody used to sit so often and chat with his friends, 
is an oval sweep of grass land descending to the 
river, and up the valley far away the eye rests on 
the mountains. Within the house it is roomy, spa- 
cious and comfortable. On the right of the pas- 
sage a library, on the left a reception room, and be- 
yond it the dining room. Up-stairs was Mr. 
Moody’s private and special den, the walls of which 
were lined with books, all of them bearing upon the 
Scriptures, 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


GREAT RELIGIOUS REVIVALS. 


Religious revivals have ever been a source of 
interest to students of sociology, history and religion. 
There have been times in the past in this country 
when different sections were interested in religious 
matters, but there have only been a few times when 
all parts of the country have been awaked at the 
same time. These events have been designated as 
periods of great religious awakening, and are admir- 
ably described in a paper by Rev. James Brand of 
Oberlin, Ohio, read before the World’s Congress of 
Religions, held in Chicago in 1893. Dr. Brand says: 

“The first century of religious history in this 
country was largely devoted to church polity and 
the relation of religion to the state. Spiritually it 
was arather barren period. There had been some 
revivals from 1670 to 1712, but they were local and 
limited in extent. The first great movement which 
really molded American Christianity was in 1740- 
1760, called ‘“‘The Great Awakening,’’ under the 
leadership of Jonathan Edwards Whitefield, Wesley 
and the Tennants, of New Jersey. This movement 
was probably the most influential force which has 
ever acted upon the development of the Christian 
teligion since the Protestant reformation. In 1740 
the population of New England was not more than 

18 307 


308 GREAT RELIGIOUS REVIVALS. 


250,000, and in all the colonies about 2,000,000. 
Yet it is estimated that more than 50,000 persons 
were converted to Christ in that revival—a far 
greater proportion than at any other period of our 
history. This movement overthrew the so-called 
‘half-way covenant,’’ a pernicious system which 
had filled both the churches and pulpits with uncon- 
verted men. In 1740 men without any pretense of 
piety studied theology, and “‘if neither heretical or 
openly immoral were ordained to the ministry,”’ 
and multitudes of men were received to church mem- 
bership without any claim to Christian life. The 
great awakening reversed that stage of things. 
Students of theology were converted in great num- 
bers, and prominent men to the number of twenty, 
who had been long in the pulpits in and about Bos- 
ton, regarded George Whitefield as the means, 
under God, of their conversion to Christ. This 
revival was not confined to New England or to any 
one body of Christians. All denominations in New 
York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and the South were 
equally blessed. The movement awakened the pub- 
lic mind more fully to the claims of home missions, 
especially among the Indians. It likewise gave a 
great impulse to Christian education. The found- 
ing of Princeton college was one of the direct fruits. 
Dartmouth college, founded in 1769, also sprang 
fromthe sameimpulse. The proposition that in the 
preaching of the gospel the distinction should be 
maintained between the regenerate and unregener- 
ate, and that the church must be composed of con- 
verted souls only, has been accepted by substantially 
all evangelical demoninations since that time. The 
great doctrines made especially prominent in this 


GREAT RELIGIOUS REVIVALS. 309 


religious movement were those required to meet the 
peculiar circumstances of the times, viz., the sinful- 
ness of sin, the necessity of conversion and justifica- 
tion by faith in Christ alone. These doctrines were 
the mighty forces wielded by the leaders of that 
time, and resulted in the recasting of the religious 
opinions of the eighteenth century. 

‘The second general evangelistic movement, 1797- 
1810, generally called the revival of 1800, was hardly 
less important as a factor in our Christian life than 
its predecessor. It, too, followed a period of form- 
alism and religious barrenness. It was the epoch 
of French infidelity and of Paine’s *‘Age of Reason,”’ 
from which this revival emancipated America 
while France was left a spiritual wreck. Up to 
this time almost nothing had been done in the line * 
of foreign missions, and there were hardly any per- 
manent institutions of a national character for the 
spread of the gospel apart from the churches and 
three or fourcolleges. From thismovement sprang, 
as by magic, nearly all the great national religious 
institutions of to-day. The ‘‘Plan of Union’’ in 
1801 to evangelize New Connecticut—Andover Sem- 
inary in 1808 to provide trained pastors; the Amer- 
ican Board, representing two or three denomina- 
tions, in 1801; the American Baptist Missionary 
Union, 1814; the American Education Society, 1815; 
the Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society, in 
1819; the Yale Theological Department, in 1822; 
American Temperance Society, in 1826; American 
Home Missionary Society, 1830; East Windsor 
Theological Seminary, in 1833. Here, again, all 
religious bodies were equally enriched and enlarged 
by the stupendous impulse given to religious 


310 GREAT RELIGIOUS REVIVALS. 


thought and activity by this revival. The leading 
characteristic of this movement, so far as doctrines 
were concerned, was the sovereignty of God. The 
success of the colonies in the Revolutionary war, the 
establishment of national independence, the awaken- 
ing forces of material and industrial development, 
together with the prevailing rationalistic and athe- 
istic influence of France, had produced a spirit of 
pride and self-sufficiency which was hostile to the 
authority of God, and, of course, antagonistic to the 
gospel. To meet this state of the public mind, 
evangelistic leaders were naturally led to lay special 
emphasis upon the absolute and eternal dominion of 
God, as the infinitely wise and benevolent Ruler of 
the universe, and man as His subject, fallen, de- 
pendent, guilty, to whom pardon was offered. Here 
was found the divine corrective of the perils which 
were threatening to overwhelm the country in barren 
and self-destructive materialism. 

“The third great movement was in 1830-1840. 
The tendency of the human mind is to grasp certain 
truths which have proved specially effective in one 
set of circumstances and press them into service 
under different circumstances, to the neglect of 
other truths. Thus the severity of God, which had 
needed such peculiar emphasis in 1800, came to be 
urged to the exclusion of those truths which touch 
the freedom and responsibility of man. When, 
therefore, this third revival period began, the truths 
most needed were the freedom of the will, the nature 
of the moral law, the ability and, therefore, the 
absolute obligation of man to obey God and make 
himself a new heart. Accordingly, these were the 
mighty weapons which were wielded by the great 





* 


GREAT RELIGIOUS REVIVALS. 311 


leaders, Finney, Nettleton, Albert Barnes and 
others, in the revival of that period. Thus a counter 
corrective was administered which tended not only 
to correct and convert vast multitudes of souls, but 
also to establish the scriptural balance of truthe 4 

“The fourth pentecostal season, which may be 
called national in its scope, was in 1857-9. Atthat | 
time inordinate worldliness, the passion for gain and 
luxury, had been taking possession of the people. 
The spirit of reckless speculation and other immoral 
methods of gratifying material ambition had over- 
reached itself and plunged the nation into a financial 
panic. The Divine Spirit seized this state of things 
to convict men of their sins. The result was a great 
turning to God alloverthe land. In this awakening 
no great leaders seem to stand out pre-eminent. But. 
the plain lessons of the revival are God’s rebuke of | 
worldliness, the fact that it is better to be righteous 
than to be rich, and that nations, like individuals, are | 
in His hands. 

““The latest evangelistic movements which are 
meeting this new era and are destined to be as help- 
ful to American Christianity as any preceding ones 
are those under the present leadership of men like 
Messrs. Moody and Millsandtheirconfreres. These 
revivals, though perhaps lacking the tremendous 
seriousness and profundity of conviction which came 
from the Calvinist preachers dwelling on the nature 
and attributes of God, nevertheless exhibit a more 
truly balanced Gospel than any preceding ones. 
They announce pre-eminently a Gospel of hope. 
They emphasize the love of God, the sufficiency of 
Christ, the guilt and unreason of sin, the privilege 
of serving Christ and the duty of immediate sur- 


a 


312 GREAT RELIGIOUS REVIVALS. 


render. If men said, ‘Is not the Gospel being over- 
grown?’ They said, ‘No, that cannot be.’ If 
they said, ‘Is the doctrine broad enough and deep 
enough to lead the progress of the race in all stages 
of its development and be the text-book of religious 
teaching to the end of time?’ ’”’ 





CHAPTER XXV. 


REVIVAL SERMON. 


Delivered at Cleveland, Ohio, October sth, 1879, 
and considered by many to be one among 
Mr. Moody’s best efforts. 


I have selected to-day a subject rather than a 
text. We have come to this city to preach Christ, 
and I want to commence the services by just asking 
this congregation what Christ is to you. And now 
if we can get right home to ourselves to begin with, 
we will save a good deal of time. One of the most 
difficult things we have in preaching the gospel is 
to get people to hear for themselves. They are 
willing to hear for other people. I once read of a 
colored minister who said that a good many of his 
congregation would be lost because they were too 
generous; and the way he explained it was that they 
were SO very generous with the sermon that they 
generally gave the sermon to their friends and 
neighbors, and did not take it home to themselves. 
And there are a great many white people, I think, 
who are just as generous as the colored people. They 
are always generous with the sermon. They are 
willing to give it to any one. It is always good for 
some one else. They are willing to lend their ears 
for some one else, but it is very hard for them to 
take it home to themselves. 

. 313 


3l4 REVIVAL SERMON. 


Now, to-day, we want, if possible, to have every 
man, woman and child in this congregation ask him- 
self this question, ‘‘What is Christ to me?’’ Not to 
ny neighbor, not to the world, but what is He to 
me? Whois He and whatis He? I wish I could 
just lodge the subject right into your hearts to begin 
with. Now, don’t think that will be good for some 
one behind you. Don’t pass the text over your 
shoulder to some one back of you; he will pass it to 
some one behind him, as is often done; passit along 
out doors and away it goes, they forget all about the 
text, the sermon and everything. 

Now, let the question come to each one, ‘‘What is 
Jesus Christ to me?’’ I would like to tell you what 
He has been to me since I have known Him. AndI 
think if any man here to-day wants to know Christ, 
he must first know Him asa Savior. ‘‘His name shall 
be called Jesus, for He shall save His people from 
their sins.’’ Itis the only name given under heaven 
—it cannot be said of any other man; it is not said of 
Moses; it is not said of Elijah; it is not said of the 
prophets or patriarchs or apostles that they shall save 
men—not any other name among men under heaven 
that can save the sinner, but the name of Jesus. 

And if we are to know Him as our Redeemer, 
and if we are to know Him as our Deliverer, and if 
we are to know Him as our Shepherd, and our great 
High Priest, and our Prophet, and our King, we 
must first know Him as our Savior. We must meet 
Him on the cross first. We must see him at Cal- 
vary putting away sin, and when we have seen Him 
as our Savior, then we go on and He unfolds Him- 
self to us, and we see Him in a great many other 
lights. 





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REVIVAL SERMON. 317 


Now He is more than a Savior. I might see a man 
drowning. I might plunge into the stream and res- 
cuethatman. I mightsave the man from drowning, 
but then I would leave him there on the banks, and 
he would have to make the rest of the journey of 
life without me. But the Son of God is more than 
a Savior. After He has saved, He not only is with 
us, but He delivers us from the power of sin. He 
is a deliverer from sin. I believe there are a great 
many people who have gone to Calvary. They 
have seen Christ as their Savior, but they forget 
that He is a deliverer, and wants to deliver them 
from the power of sin. I don’t believe that He 
comes down here and pardons us and then leaves us 
in prison. I don’t believe He comes down here and 

the fetters and then leaves us in the bondage. 
When the children of Israel were put behind the 
blood, down there in Goshen, God said, ‘‘When I 
see the blood, I will pass over you.’’ The blood 
was their savior, the blood was their salvation. But 
then He did something more when He took them out 
of Goshen, and when He took them out of Egypt, 
and away from their taskmakers, and out of the land 
of bondage. Then He was their deliverer. 

When they came to the Red Sea, and the moun- 
tains were on each side of them, and Pharaoh with 
his hosts coming on in the rear, and the Red Sea 
before them—then it was that they wanted a deliv- 
erer. And I venture to say a good many of the 
children of God have known what it is to come to 
the Red Sea. You have known what it was to be 
where you could only look up and cry to God to 
deliver you. You could not turn to the right; you 
could not turn to the left; you could not turn back; 


= 


: 
| 


318 REVIVAL SERMON, 


and the Almighty God has come and opened the Red 
Sea, and you have passed over dry shod. 

But when He delivered them from the hands of 
the king and from their taskmakers, and brought 
them out of the house of bondage, and brought 
them through the Red Sea, He became something 
else to them; He became then their way. 

Now, you very often hear people say, ‘‘I don't 
know as I will become a Christian. I don’t know 
really what church to belong to.’’ They will give 
that as an excuse. I have heard more men give 


_ that as an excuse, than anything else. They say 


there are so many different denominations now, and 
there are so many different churches, that they 
don’t know what to believe. I am very thankful 
that the Lord has not left us in darkness about that 
at all. It is no excuse at all. A man can’t stand up 


} at the door of heaven and say, ‘“‘I didn’t become a 
_ Christian because I did not know the way.”’ 


ed 


Now, people say there are so many denomina- 
tions. ‘‘There are the Methodists. John Wesley 
was a little nearer right than the rest of you. I 
will join the Methodists.’’ Then there are our good 
Baptist brethren. They say their way is the best 
way. ‘‘You had better be immersed and come in 
through our door.”’ 

And there is our Episcopal brother. He says, ‘‘If 
you want to come into the true apostolic church, you 
have got to join the Episcopal Church.’’ 

And up steps a Roman Catholic, and says, ‘‘If yon 
want to come into the true apostolic church, you 
have got to become a Roman Catholic.”’ 

And then there are the Presbyterians, and they 





REVIVAL SERMON. 319 


tell you that John Calvin is better than any of them, 
and you must go the Calvin way. 

And so they say there are so many different de- 
nominations, so many different ways, that they don’t 
know what church to join. 

Now, my friends, listen to what the Son of ae 
says: ‘“‘I am the way.’’ And if I follow Him I 
will be in the right church; He will not lead me 
into error: He will not lead me into darkness; He 
leads out of bondage. He leads into liberty, and 
into light, and He is the only man who ever trod 
on this earth that it is safe to follow in all things. 
If I follow any man but Jesus Christ, I will get into 
darkness and bondage. If I follow the isms of the 
day and nothing else, they will lead me out into 
black darkness. But if I follow the Son of God, He 
leads me into life and light immortal out of dark-_ 
ness. ; 

As I walked through this hall yesterday morning, 
I stood and looked up there and I saw a text, and I 
said, ‘‘That is a good text for me.’’ It says, ‘‘I am 
the way.’’ There is life in those words. ‘‘I am 
the way,’’ says the Son of God. Follow Him and 
you will be in the right church. And when a man 
is willing to bow his will to God’s will and say, 
‘Lord Jesus, I am willing to follow Thee, to receive 
Thee,” then he will be in the right church; there 
will be no trouble then. He submits his will to 
God’s will and submits his way to God’s way, and 
takes God’s way. 

You know that God knows a great deal more 
about this earth than you andIdo. God knewa 
great deal more about the pitfalls in the wilderness, 
and knew all about that perilous way when He led 


| 


320 REVIVAL SERMON. 


the children of Israel. He led them by a pillar of 
fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day; and all 
they had to do was to keep their eye on that cloud. 
When the cloud moved, they moved; when the 
cloud rested, they rested. 

ow, all we have got to do is to keep our eye on 
the Master. Follow Him. He don’t ask us to go 
where He has not gone Himself. He don't go 
around and drive you and me; but He says, ‘‘Fol- 
low thou Me.’’ And if a man will become His dis- 
ciple and follows in His path, he may put his feet 


nt in His footprints and follow Him. 


You know out on the frontiers you will find there 
the Indian trail; and I am told by some of those 
men who have been in that country there, that even 
over the Rocky Mountains it looks as though only 
one man had trod that path. The chief goes on 
before, and the rest follow and put their feet right 
in the foot-prints of the chief. So the Captain of 
our salvation has gone before in the path, and if I 
follow Him I will have the life and the peace that is 
promised to every child of God. 

_—But then He is more than the way. You know 
He might be the way, and the way might be very 
dark, but He says, ‘‘I am the light of life, and if any 
man follow Me, he shall not walk in darkness, but 
shall have the light of iife.”’ 


i= Now, it is impossible for any man to be in darkness 


while following Jesus Christ. Why? Because He 
is the light of the world. What that the sun is in 
yonder heavens to the solar system, so Christ is to 
the spiritual world. There isa picture in some of 
your homes—if a man should give it to me, I don’t 
know what I would do with it; I would have to put 


7 


REVIVAL SERMON. 321 


it up the wrong way, the face toward the wall. I 
don't know what the artist was thinking about when 
he got that picture up. It is a beautiful work of 
art, a beautiful steel engraving, and represents 
Jesus Christ standing at the door of a man’s cottage 
with a lantern in His hand, knocking. What does 
Christ want with a lantern? You might as well 
hold a lantern to the sun. He says, “I am the light 
of the world.’’ What we want is to keep our eye 
right upon Him. He will give us light. 

There is no such thing as a man being in darkness 
that is following Him. If there isa man or woman in 
this audience to-day that is in darkness about spirit- 
ual things, it is because they have got away from 
Him; it is because they have not followed Him; it 
is because they have not got their eye upon Him. 
That is what brings darkness, and what He wants is 
to have each one of us just to keep our eye upon 
Him and follow Him. 

But then I can imagine I hear some of you say, 
“If you had the trouble I have had, you would not 
talk in that way. If you were in my condition you 
would not talk in that way.’’ I remember during 
our war, I was attending a meeting; it was the first 
year of the war. Our armies had been repulsed in 
the West; had been repulsed in the East, and it 
looked very dark. It looked as if this republic was 
going to pieces. Every one that got up to speak at 
that meeting had his harp upon the willow. It was 
a doleful meeting. But at last an old man got up; 
he had a beautiful white beard, and he gave us 
young men a lecture. Says he, ‘“‘You don’t talk 
like the children of light, don’t talk like the sons of 
the King. We belong to the kingdom of God.”’ 


322 REVIVAL SERMON. 


Says he, ‘‘There is no darkness there. If it happens 
to be dark right around you, it is light somewhere 
else. If it is dark down here, look up; there is the 
light. Our home is up there.’’ After rebuking us 
for our want of faith and our finding fault, he said 
he had just come from the East; that he had been 
induced by some friends to go to one of the Eastern 
mountain peaks to see the sunrise. He said he 
went to the half-way house and made arrangements 
with the landlord to take him up before daybreak, 
to get into the mountain to see the sunrise. The 
guide went before, holding the lantern. He said 
they had not been gone a great while before a 
storm came up, and it began to thunder, began to 
rain, and he said to the guide, ‘*The storm will pre- 
vent my seeing the sunrise this morning, and you 
had better take me back.’’ The guide smiled and 
said, ‘‘I think we will get above this storm.’’ And 
sure enough we got above the clouds and the storm. 
On the mountain peak it was as calm as any sum- 
mer evening in his life. As he looked down into the 
clouds, he saw the lightning playing up and down 
the valley, but he said it was all calm on the moun- 
tain peak, and turning to us, he said: 

“Young men, if it is dark in the valley, look 
higher up; climb a little higher up and get on the 
mountain peak.’’ And as the highest mountain 
peaks catch the first rays of the morning sun, so 
those who live nearest to heaven, nearest to Christ, 
get the first news from heaven. It is the privilege 
of every child of God to walk in an unclouded sun, 
in perpetual light. I believe it has done more to 
retard the cause of Christ and Christianity, than any 
one thing, our being so despondent, looking on the 


REVIVAL SERMON. 323 


dark side, leaving the Author of life, light, and 
going the by-ways with our heads down like a bul- 
rush. Let us remember, my friends, that Christ is 
the light of the world. If we follow Him we shall 
not be in darkness, but shall have the light of life. 

It is said of some men away out on the frontier, that 
when they want to go off in the wilderness hunting, 
where there is no road or path, they take an ax or 
hatchet, and they cut off the bark of a tree, and they 
call that blazing the way. So the Son of God has 
been down in this dark world. He has “‘blazed the 
way,’’ led captivity captive. He has traveled this 
wilderness and gone up onhigh. All we have to 
do is to follow Him. If we keep our eye right on 
Him, we will have light all the while. 

I remember when I wasa boy, I used to try to 
walk across a field after the snow had fallen, and 
try to make a straight path; an@ as long as I kept 
my eye ona point at the other side of the field, I 
could make a straight path, but if I looked over my 
shoulder to see if I was walking straight, I would 
always walk crooked—always. And where I find 
people turning around to see how others walk, they 
always walk crooked. But if you want to walk 
straight through this world, keep your eye on the 
Captain of your salvation, who has gone with you 
in the vale. Just keep your eye on Him, and you 
will have peace and light. 

I remember when I was a little boy, I used to try 
to catch my shadow. I used to try to seeit. I 
could not jump over my head. Iran and jumped, 
but my head always kept just so far ahead of me. 
I never could catch my shadow, but I remember 
I was running with my face toward the sun, and I] 


une 


324 REVIVAL SERMON. 


looked over my shoulder and I found my shadow 
coming after me. 

And I find since I became a Christian that if I 
keep my eye on the Son of Righteousness, peace and 
light and joy and everything follows in the train; 
but if I get my eye off Him, I always get in dark- 
ness and trouble. So if you want to keep in the 
light, keep your eye fixed on the Son of Righteous- 
ness and follow Him. 

Now, we have Him as our Savior; we have Him 
as our Deliverer; we have Him as our Way; we 
have Him as our Truth, because He is the truth. 
If you want to know what is truth, Christ is the 
embodiment of truth; if you want to know the truth, 
know Him. There isnoerrorin Him. He taught 
no false doctrine. He taught truth. And if you want 
to know the truth, know Him. He says, “‘I am the 
truth.’’ He is the very embodiment of it. And if 
people say, ‘‘But I have not got life, I have not got 
spiritual power.’’ Well, He is the life, and if you 
have not got spiritual power, it is because you have 
not got enough of Christ. If you want spiritual life 
more abundantly, let Christ come into your heart 
and reign without a rival. He is the life of the 
world, and when man goes away from Him, he goes 
away from the life and power. 

But then He is something else. Perhaps some of 
you have come to a fork in the road sometimes, and 
you have not known just which way toturn. I was 
going to a little town last month to preach the gos- 
pel, and I came over a bridge, and I came to a road 
that ran right across mine, and which way to turn I 
did not know. There was no guide-post there, and 
I did not know which way to go. Well, I am talk- 


REVIVAL SERMON. 325 


ing, perhaps, toa good many in this audience that 
have come to such a fork in their spiritual life. 
You have come to a piace where you have not known 
which way to turn. Well, rightin here we have 
tead that Christ isa teacher. God sent Him down 
to be a teacher, to be our counsellor, and to be our 
guide, and if we will have Him, He will guide us 
and teach us the right thing. He did not teach as 
the scribes did; He taught with the authority God 
had given Him. He did not teach opinions. Men 
come along now, and they teach their opinions. I 
would rather have ‘‘Thus saith the Lord’’ than all 
their opinions. It is not what man says, and when 
He teaches us, my friends, He will teach us the right 
way. Therefore, we want to take Him as our 
teacher—our guide. I have never known a man, I 
don’t care how skeptical he has been, if he is will- 
ing to let the Lord teach him the way, but what the 
Lord has taught him. If a skeptic has come in here 
to-day, just out of curiosity, I would like to get his 
ear for about five minutes; I would like to say to 
him that the God that has made you can teach you 
if you will let Him. Infidels are so conceited that 
they think they are wiser than the Almighty God; 
they are not willing to let the God who created them 
teach them. They forget that when man fell in 
Eden his reason fell with him. They forget that 
the God of heaven and earth is greater than their 
reason. 

I was in a little town in Illinois a number of years 
ago, when I first commenced to work for the Lord. 
I could not preach, but got up a liitle meeting and 
talk. There was a lady came to me just as the 
meeting was breaking up, and says, ‘‘Mr. Moody, I 


326 REVIVAL SERMON. 


wish you would come and see my husband and talk 
with him about his soul.’’ Well, I consented. I 
saw she was greatly burdened. I went to take down 
his name. She gave me the name, and I said to 
her, ‘‘You will excuse me; I can not go to see that 
man.’’ She says, ‘‘Why not?’’ ‘‘Why, he is a Book 
infidel; a graduate of one of the Eastern colleges, 
and Iamamere strippling—a boy;-.I can’t go to 
meet him.” ‘‘Well,’’ she says, ‘‘I would like to 
have you go, Mr. Moody, and talk to him about his 
soul.’’ ‘‘Well,’’ I says, ‘‘you had better have some 
one older; I can’t meet him in argument.’’ She 
says, ‘‘It is not argument he wants; he has had 
enough of that; he wants some one to invite him to 
Christ.’’ She urged so hard, I went down to see 
him. I went into his office; I shook hands, intro- 
duced myself, and after I did so, I told him my 
errand. He laughed at me, thought I had come on 
a foolish errand. He did not believe in Christ or 
Christianity; he didn’t believe in the Bible. I 
talked to him a little while, and brought out some 
of his infidel views. I said, ‘“‘Judge, I will be hon- 
est with you; I can’t argue with you; I cannot meet 
you in argument,’’ and the man seemed to grow 
two inches right off. It is astonishing how these 
men do grow when they find somebody they can 
handle in argument. I said, ‘‘I can’t meet you; I 
will be frank with you.’” He had been one of our 
leading men in the country, and I knew about his 
intellect. He hadavery brilliant mind. He had 
been one of our supreme judges; he had been mayor 
of the city he lived in, had been a member of the 
State senate a good many years, and he was a public 
man; and I said it was impossible for me to bring 


REVIVAL SERMON. 327 


forward the arguments that I would like to, and, 
therefore, he would have to excuse me, and I says, 
*‘Judge, there is just one favor I would like to ask 
of you.’’. Says he, ‘‘What is that?’ ‘‘When you 
are converted, let me know.’’ ‘‘Well,’’ says he, ‘‘I 
will let you know when I am converted. I will 
grant that request’”—with a good deal of sarcasm. 
I went out of his office, heard the clerks snickering 
when I went out. I suppose they thought I had 
made a fool of myself. 

But a year and a half after that I was back in that 
city. I was the guest of a friend, and while I was in 
the sitting-room, a servant came and said there was a 
man in the parlor that wanted tosee me. I stepped 
into the parlor, and there was the old judge. He says, 
““When I saw you last I told you when I was con- 

verted I would let you know. I have come to-day 
to tell you I have been converted.’’ I had heard it 
from the lips of others, but I wanted to get it from 
his own lips. Says I, ‘‘Judge, I wish you would 
tell the whole story; tell all about it.”” He took his 
seat, and he says, “‘Well, I will tell you; my wife 
and children had gone out to meeting one night, and 
there was no one in the house but the servant and 
myself, and I got to thinking.’’ I tell youitisa 
good thing to get men to thinking; there is always 
hope of reaching men if you get them to thinking, 
especially in America. They are after money, and 
they can’t stop to think. They are on the dead 
run; if you can stop them on a corner and get their 
attention five minutes, you are doing well in this 
country. And he got to thinking and reasoning 
with himself—and I tell you it is a good thing to get 
aman to reasoning with himself. That is the best 


328 REVIVAL SERMON. 


kind of reasoning—and he said to himself, ‘‘Well, 
now, supposing that my wife and my children are 
right and I am wrong; supposing they are all on the 
way to heaven, as they profess to think, and I am 
on my way to hell. Why,’’ said he, ‘‘I just dis- 
missed that thought at once.’’ He said he did not 
believe there was a hell. 

The next thought came. ‘‘Well, judge, do you 
believe that there is a God that created you?” 
**Yes,’’ he said, ‘‘I believe that. This world never 
happened by chance. Everything in this world 
teaches me that there is anoverruling power, and 
there is a creator. This world was not thrown to- 
gether. There must have been a creator.’’ Then 
the next thought came. ‘‘If there is a creator, and 
one that created you, the one that created you could 
teach you.’’ ‘“‘Well,” he said,.‘‘that is so. The 
God that created me could teach me,’’ and he smiled 
and said, ‘‘The fact was, Mr. Moody, I thought 
nobody could teach me. I sat there by the fire. I 
was too proud to get down on my knees. I said, 
‘O, God, teach me.’’’ It was an honest prayer. 
And if there is an honest infidel here to-day who 
will make that prayer out of the depths of his heart, 
God will teach him more in five minutes than all 
the infidels can teach him in twenty years. He 
will teach you true wisdom. It is so reasonable that 
the God that created the heavens and the earth 
can teach mortal men. He said, God began to teach 
him, and he began to see himself in a different 
light. He had been, he said, a very righteous man 
in his own estimation. He thought he was one of 
the best men that ever lived. But he said he began 
to see himself a sinner. That was something new; 


REVIVAL SERMON. 329 


and he said there was a burden right here. He said 
he had never felt any burden there before, and he 
said things began to look very dark. Things had 
always looked very bright before. And he said he 
thought his wife might come home and see that 
something ailed him—that he was troubled. So he 
said he went to bed, and he pretended to sleep; but 
he did not sleep a wink that night; but before 
morning he began to pray, ‘‘O God, save me; take 
away this burden of guilt; take away this load of 
sins!”’ 

But he said he didn’t believe in Jesus Christ; he 
didn’t want any day’s-man between him and God; 
didn’t want any mediator; he was going right 
straight to the Father; he was going to settle the 
question without Christ. 

The load grew heavier, and it grew darker and 
darker. He said when the morning came he got up 
and dressed, and said to his wife he was not feeling 
_very well; he would not stay at home to breakfast. 
He wanted to get out of the way, and went down 
to his office. The old judge kept on crying, ‘‘O, 
God, take away this burden; O, God, forgive me;’’ 
he had waked up to the fact that he wanted forgive- 
ness like other people. He went into his office. 
Men came to see him on business, but he could not 
do any business. He tried to tell his clerks what to 
do, but could not tell them. He told them they 
might take a holiday, and he locked the door of his 
office and got down on his knees and cried, ‘For 
Jesus Christ’s sake, take away this load of sins.’’ 


* He said there was a bundle rolled off when he arose 


from his knees, and said his heart was as light as 
air. Says he, ‘‘I wonder if this is not what my wife 


330 REVIVAL SERMON. 


has been praying for these years? if it is not what 
the Christians call conversion? I will go and ask the 
minister where my wife attends church if I ain’t 
converted.” And he said on the way to the min- 
ister’s house a text of Scripture came to him that 
his mother had taught him forty years before. O, 
mothers, teach your children the word of God; it 
may spring up after many years; it may bear fruit 
unto life eternal after you are dead and gone. That 
text of Scripture that mother taught that little boy 
in childhood was: ‘‘When you pray, believe you will] 
receive what you ask for, and you have it.’’ And 
he said, ‘‘I have asked God to forgive my sins, and 
Iam going up to ask the minister if my prayer is 
answered. I believe that is dishonoring God. I 
am a Christian.’’ And he says, ‘‘I started home.”’ 
His wife saw him coming. She knew how he went 
off, and thought he was coming home sick; she met 
him at the door, and said to him, ‘‘Are you sick?’’ 

‘‘No, I have been converted.” He says, ‘‘Mr. 
Moody, twenty-one long years that dear wife had 
prayed for me, and she could not believe her ears 
when I told her I was converted. She said, 
‘Come into the drawing-room.’ I knelt down and 
made my first prayer with my wife.’’ He erected a 
family altar. That old infidel judge said, ‘‘Mr. 
Moody, I have had more enjoyment in the last three 
months than in all the rest of my life put together.’’ 
If there is an honest skeptic here to-day, let God 
Almighty be your teacher; ask Him to teach you; 
ask Him to give you light beyond the grave; He 
has got the power. If you want true wisdom, go to 
Him. He will open your darkened understanding 
and cause you to understand wonderful things. 


REVIVAL SERMON. 331 


When I have been willing to let Him teach me, I 
have had perfect peace. But whenever I have gone 
against His counsel and against His teachings, it 
brought me to captivity; it has brought me into 
bondage and into darkness. When Nicodemus was 
willing to let that rabbi teach him, he taught him 
true wisdom, taught him the doctrine of the new 
birth, taught him that he must be born again. 

I might go on and speak of him asa shepherd. I 
might have known him now upwards of twenty 
years as a shepherd. He has carried my burdens for 
me. Oh, it is so sweet to know that you have one 
to whom you can go and tell all your sorrows; you 
can roll your burdens at his feet. Blessed privilege 
we have, dear friends, to go to Him with all our bur- 
dens and our sorrows. Surely, He hath borne our 
griefs and carried our sorrows. Think of Christ as 
a burden-bearer; what would this world do witheut 
Him. How dark the grave would be without Him. 

I remember making a remark a few years ago that 
there was no burden we had but that Christ would 
carry it for us if we would let Him. At the close 
of the meeting a lady pushed her way through the 
crowd and came up to me and said: ‘“‘Mr. Moody, 
if you had the burden I have got you could not have 
said what you did to-day.’”’ ‘‘Perhaps not,’’ I said. 
“But have you a burden too great for Christ to 
carry?’’ ‘‘Well,’’ she said, ‘“‘I would not say it was 
too great for Christ to carry.’’ But she said, ‘‘I 
can’t leave it with Him.’ ‘‘Well, it is your fault, 
because He tells you todo it. He commands you to 
cast your care upon Him, for He careth for you, for 
he numbers the very hairs of your head, and a spar- 
row can’t fall to the ground without His knowledge. 


332 REVIVAL SERMON. 


Do you think He will not help you in the time of 
trouble, that He will not bear your burden and 
carry your sorrow if you will let Him?’’ ‘‘Well,”’ 
she said, ‘‘just hear me, sir. I am the mother of 
one child, and that is a wanderer. For years I 
have not heard from him. Look at these hairs, they 
are untimely gray. I will soon go down to my 
grave. It is crushing me down to the grave.” 
‘‘Well,’’ I said, ‘‘my good woman, don’t you know 
that Jesus Christ knows where your child is, and 
don’t you know that you can reach him this very 
hour by the way of the throne—that the spirit of 
God will search him out, and that boy may be con- 
victed and converted and brought home in answer 
to prayer? Go tell it out to Christ. Go pour out 
your heart to Him. Tell Him all your sorrows.”’ 
I told that lady of a case in Indiana. 

A boy went from the southern part of Indiana 
to Chicago. He was a moral young man—and a 
great many parents are satisfied if their children are 
moral; but I tell you the temptations of city life are 
too much for any man who has not got Christ as a 
keeper. He will be swept away in the time of 
temptation. This young man had not been in Chi- 
cago a great many months when a neighbor came up 
to Chicago on business, and found that young man 
reeling through the streets drunk. When he went 
back he thought he ought to tell that father, but he 
knew it would about break his heart, and then he 
felt as though he could not doit. He kept it locked 
up in his heart for some time, but one day he 
thought if that boy was his, and was becoming a 
drunkard, he would want to know it. Andso he 
took that father off to one side, one day, and told 


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REVIVAL SERMON. 335 


him what he had seen in Chicago. It was a terrible 
blow to the father. He went home that night, and 
after the children had been put to bed, and the wife 
was sitting by the table at work, and he said to her, 
‘““Wife, Ihave got some very bad news from Chi- 
cago to-day.’’ The wife dropped her work and said, 
“Pray, tell me what it can be?’’ ‘‘Our boy was seen 
on the streets of Chicago by Neighbor So-and-So 
drunk.’’ They did not sleep that night. They 
spent that night taking that burden away to Jesus 
Christ. They took that wandering boy in the arms 
of their faith to the Son of God, pleading that their 
boy might be saved, and that he might not go down 
to a drunkard’s grave. About daybreak the mother 
said, ‘‘I don’t know where, I don’t know when, I 
don’t know how my boy is to be saved; but God has 
given me faith to believe that my boy is to become 
a Christian.’” Her faith rested there. She carried 
that burden to the Son of God, and at the end of the 
week that boy came home, and the first thing he 
said as he crossed the threshold was, ‘‘Mother, I 
have come home to ask you to pray for me,’’ and it 
was found that the very night the father and the 
mother were praying God to touch the heart of their 
boy, he had become converted. 

O, mothers, pray for your boys; fathers, cry 
mightily to God for the children He has given you. 

I wish I had time to take Him up as our shepherd, 
I would like to take Him up as our Redeemer, as 
our sanctification, as our justification, as our all in 
all. I could not tell you in one short hour what 
Christ is. It will take all eternity to tell you what 
Christ is. I want to stand here to-day to tell you 
that He is the best friend the sinner has got. He is 

19 


836 REVIVAL SERMON. 


just the friend every man needs here. If you take 
Him to be your Savior, your way, your truth, your 
life, your shepherd, your burden-bearer, He will be 
true to you, and He will carry all your sins, and all 
your burdens, and all your sorrows. 


CHAPTER: XX VI. 


FAITH. 
SERMON. 


Text.—Bring him unto Me. Mark ix. Ig. 


We find in this chapter that Christ had taken 
Peter, James and John, and had been up in the 
Mount of Transfiguration, and the first thing that 
met His eye as He came down from that holy mount 
was a great multitude gathered around His disciples 
and rejoicing—the enemies of Christ rejoicing over 
the defeat of the disciples; and when He made in- 
quiry to find out what had caused the discussion, 
one of the multitude spoke up and said, ‘‘I have 
brought my son to Thy disciples that they might cast 
out an unclean spirit, and they could not do it.’’ 
They had no faith. 

Now it strikes me that that is the condition of the 
church in this country at the present time. We 
have not got power to cast out these devils. I be- 
lieve men are possessed of devils now as much as 
they were in the days of Christ. I think this rum 
devilis about as great a devil as they had in the 
days of Christ... And you will find a good many 
possessed of the rum devil. And then this infidel 
devil is as bad as it was in the days of Christ. 
These unbelieving devils are possessing men, and 
what we want is power to cast them out; and what 

337 


8338 FAITH. 


we want, it seems to me, isto learn this lesson: that 
if we have failed it is not God's fault, but it is our 
own fault; and we want to just get by these ob- 
stacles and get right to the Master Himself. 

Turn to Kings and you will find that in the days 
of Elisha he saw that Shunammite woman coming, 
and he says to his servant, ‘‘Go and ask her if it is 
well with the child and well with the husband.”’ 
And she said it was well. Elisha could not under- 
stand it. But she came and threw herself right at 
his feet, and it was revealed unto Elisha what the 
trouble was. The child was dead; but that woman 
had faith and believed that he should rise again. 
There is faith for you! So he said to his servant, 
‘*Take thy staff, and go and lay it upon the child.”’ 
And they tried to send the woman away; but she 
said, ‘‘As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I 
will not leave thee!’’ She had got beyond the staff 
and beyond the servant, and got right to the Master 
himself, and it was well that she did, because the 
old staff did not raise the dead child. It needed 
Elisha himself, and that woman was very wise. 
And what we want is to learn a lesson from the 
Shunammite woman; but if the disciples can’t cast 
out those devils, what we want is to lift our eyes 
higher up; to lift our eyes to the One sitting upon 
the throne, who is unchangeable, the same yester- 
day,to-day and forever. Christ has got power; and if 
the church will only have faith we will see signs and 
wonders in this city. The Lord is wonderful to 
save, my friends; He delights to save. But there 
is one thing that He wants among His people, and 
that is faith. Faith can do most anything with 
Jesus Christ. When He was down here faith could 


FAITH. 339 


lead Him around anywhere and could get him to 
do almost anything. And what we want in the 
church to-day is faith to believe that the Son of God 
has power to bless. 

When these disciples failed, I can imagine they 
reasoned something like this, ‘*Why, it is a pretty 
hard case.’’ One of the disciples says, “‘I have 
asked him how long he had been troubled with this 
deaf and dumb spirit, and the father said he was 
born so, and it is pretty discouraging. If he could 
only hear us, why, then there would be some hope. 
If he could only speak and tell us how he feels, 
there would be some hope. He can’t hear and he 
can’t speak. Itisa pretty hopeless case.’’ But see 
what the Master said when He came down from that 
mount: “‘Bring him unto Me.’’ And I tell you if 
the Master tells us to bring our friends and those 
whom we are anxious should be saved to Him, let 
us obey His command. Let us bring them in the 
arms of our faith and lay them right at His feet. 
But there is one thing I want to call your attention 
to. That father got the “if” in the wrong place. 
He says, Lord, zf Thou canst do anything, and the 
Lord just corrected him and put the ‘‘if’’in the 
right place. ‘‘If thou canst believe, all things are 
possible;’’ you don’t want to put any ifsin if you 
are going to bring souls to Christ. Don’t put in “‘if 
Thou canst doanything.’’ The leper we read about 
in the fifth chapter of Luke got the “‘if’’ in the right 
place. He says, “‘Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst 
make me clean.’’ That pleased the Master. He 
said, “‘I will; be thou clean.’’ With a word he 
cleansed him. But this father got the ‘‘if’’ in the 
wrong place—‘‘If Thou canst help us, we want 


340 FAITH. 


help.’’ See how quick he could help him when he . 
brought him to the Master. As he came the devil 
tripped him up on the way, as he has done a great 
many times since. When a man sets his face to 
come to Christ, the devil trips him up—throws him 
down. But bear in mind, devils, and disease and 
death are to obey the voice of the Son of God. He 
spoke and that unclean spirit came out of him; and 
not only that, He told him to come back no more. 
I tell you, if the Lord sent him away he will never 
come back. Some people are afraid if men are con- 
verted they won’t hold out. But when the Lord 
casts out those devils, and gives them instructions 
never to come back, they will hold out. What the 
Lord does, holds through eternity itself. What 
man does is very short and transitory, but when 
God works He works thoroughly. He gave to that 
devil instructions never to come back again, and he 
had to obey. There was one thing that the devils 
had to do when Christ was here—and He is here now 
in Spirit—and that was, they had to obey Him. 
You turn to the 5th chapter of Mark, and you 
will find there the Son of God had power over devils, 
over disease and death. In the fifth chapter of 
Mark you will find three incurable diseases. If 
they had them now-a-days, they would have them 
insomeincurable hospital. There are hospitals now 
being erected in some parts of this country, and 
there are a good many in Europe, for the incurable. 
But there were no incurables when Christ was 
here. He was a match for every case they brought 
to Him. Here, in this fifth chapter of Mark, we 
read of a man who was possessed of devils; he had 
legionsofthem. No mancouldbind him. No man 


FAITH. 841 


could tame him; for they had often bound him with 
fetters and chains, but the chains had been plucked 
asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces. 
They had clothed him, but he would tear the clothes 
from him, and they could not keep a rag on his 
. back; there he was—a maniac. But when Christ 
met him, with a word He cast out those unclean 
spirits; with a word He restored him back to his 
family. He said to him: ‘‘Go home and tell your 
friends what great things the Lord has done for 
you.’’ And he went back and began to publish the 
great things the Lord had done for him, and all men 
marveled. I tell you there will be some marvel- 
ing in this city when God begins to work. That is 
what makes men marvel. What we want is to pray 
God Almighty to come and work in this city, and 
cast out these unclean spirits. And we read a little 
further in the fifth chapter of Mark, of a woman 
who had an issue of blood for twelve years. She 
had suffered many things of many physicians; grew 
worse all the while. When men are running to 
earthly physicians they grow worse all the time. 
When men are trying to patch up their old Adam- 
nature—trying to make themselves better, they are 
growing worse all the time. When men are trying 
to save themselves and work out their own salvation 
without the help of God—trying to work out this 
great question, they are all the time making them- 
selves worse. Why, this woman tried many physi- 
cians. Perhaps she had been down to Damascus 
and tried the leading physicians there, or had been 
up to Jerusalem and tried the leading physicians 
there, and if they had the physicians of the old 
school and new school, she tried both schools, but 


342 FAITH. 


kept getting worse. If they had patent medicines 
she would be trying every kind of patent medicine; 
but they did not help her—all the while growing 
worse. But one day Jesus happened to be coming 
in that part of the country. I can see her getting 
down her garments, and the children trying to per- 
suade her not to go: ‘‘Mother, we hope you are not. 
going to run after that physician. You have tried 
so many, and we hope you are not going to waste 
your strength by running after that physician.” I 
can see her putonher garments. I don’t know what 
they wore in those days, but if she had a shawl, it 
was an old shawl. The doctors had got all her 
money in the twelve years. She got down her old 
faded bonnet and away she went. She is in the 
crowd, elbowing her way, pushing her way toward 
the great prophet. When she gets near enough to 
touch Him, able bodied men push her back, saying 
to her, ‘‘Don’t you know there are other people 
here who want to get near Him as well as yourself.”’ 
She did not care what they said. She wished that 
she might get near enough to touch Him. There 
was faith for you. She had faith to believe that if 
she could just touch the hem of His garment, she 
would be made whole. I tell you when faith was 
near the Son of God He knew all aboutit. And 
again she elbows her way through that crowd, and 
pushes her way up to Him, and, when near enough, 
at last reaches out her thin, pale arm—nothing but 
skin and bone. You can see that hand, that bony 
finger; and at last she just touches the hem of His 
garment, and lo! ina minute, she is made well. Some 
one has said there was more medicine in His gar- 
ments than in all the apothecary shops in Palestine. 


FAITH. 343 


The moment she touched his garment she was healed. 
Thatis faith. Some people say, ‘‘Oh, well, some men 
have become so debased, so debauced, are such © 
drunkards, that it has become a disease with them.”’ 
Suppose it has become a disease, God is able to heal. 
That woman had a disease for twelve years. Buta 
touch and the work was done; and he turned and 
said, “‘Who touched Me?” and they said, “‘That is a 
queer question.’’ Why, look at the crowd that has 
been thronging for hours. Look at the hands that 
touched Him. They could not tell the difference 
between the touch of the crowd and the touch of 
faith. Some of the people came and looked ali 
around, just as some people have come here; they 
will be casting around and they will go out as 
empty as they camein. But there may be some 
one that is seeking a blessing, and he will say, “‘Oh, 
that I may touch Him to-night, that I may get the 
power; that I may be healed.”’ 

And I tell you if faith is here, He will be here. 
That is what He wanted to bring out before those 
people. He knew that faith had touched Him, and 
virtue had gone forth. 

He knew who the woman was, but He wanted to 
get her confession. And she fell at His feet and 
told it allto Him; she had tried other physicians, 
but the moment she tried the true physician she 
was healed. 

Then that other case in the third chapter of 
Mark. ‘That was more hopeless than the other two, 
because the child was dead. There was no use send- 
ing for any physician; the child was too far gone. 
But the moment Christ got in that chamber and met 

20 


344 FAITH. 


death face to face, death fled before Him. He had 
power to raise the dead. j 

And so there are some people here in Cleveland 
who will say, ‘‘There is no use talking to that per- 
son. He is dead to everything that is pure. He is 
dead to everything that is righteous and holy.’’ 
But, my dear friends, our Savior is a quickener. 
And what we want is faith to believe that our 
Father and Master can raise these dead souls if we 
bring them unto Him. 

Now, if you have got a son who has wandered far 
away, and you have become discouraged, and said 
that there is no use laboring for his salvation, my 
dear friend, bear in mind, it is very dishonoring to 
God. Instead of looking at these obstacles—looking 
at the human heart so hard and thinking it cannot 
be reached—let us lift our eyes to Him who sits 
upon the throne, and remember that just as He left 
the earth, He told us that all power is given to Him 
in heaven and on earth; andif He has got such 
mighty power, can’t He save? Is there a man so 
far gone in all Cleveland that Christ cannot save 
him? Is there a woman so low, and so degraded, 
and so depraved that Jesus Christ cannot save her? 
Away with the doctrine! My dear friends, He.can. 
He can save unto the uttermost. Let us hear the 
voice of the Master coming from the throne to-night. 
‘‘Bring him unto Me.’’ ‘‘Bring her unto Me.” Let 
us take them in the arms of our faith to the Son of 
God, and have faith to believe that He has power 
to cast out, to heal, to cleanse, to make whole, and 
to raise even the dead to life. 

Now, it seems to me, as He said that tothat father, 
that we might justly apply this to parents. I will 


FAITH. 845 


venture to say that half of this audience here to- 
nightare parents. Fathers and mothers, let me ask 
you a question. Are you not anxious for that child 
that God has given you, or for those children? May 
I not speak to some father here to-night who has 
got a wayward boy? Perhaps this hour while you 
are here in this gospel meeting, that boy is down 
yonder in some brothel, or some gambling den, or 
some drinking saloon. His feet are hastening on 
down to death andruin. Don’t you want that boy 
reached? Let us have faith to believe that God can 
save our children. I do not believe God wants our 
children lost. I believe that we can be co-workers 
with Him. It isa great privilege, and it is a great 
opportunity we have of a united effort—fathers and 
mothers coming together to bring their children to 
the Lord Jesus Christ. AndI believe that if fathers 
and mothers, during the next thirty days make up 
their minds, God helping them, that they will bring 
about this one result, that they will bring salvation 
to their family, that they will ask the Lord Jesus 
Christ to come into their homes and save every 
member of their family, God will not disappoint 
them. And I believe that if we hear His voice to- 
night saying, bring him or bring her unto Me, and 
obey that command, and we bring our children to 
the Lord Jesus Christ, He will bless them. 

I remember a few years ago hearing of a mother 
who was dying with consumption, that had seven 
children, and when the hour came for her to leave 
this earth, she asked the father to bring the chil- 
dren to her bedside, and the husband brought the 
childreninone byone. The oldest one was brought 
in first, and the mother placed her hand upon its 


346 FAITH. 


head and gave that child a mother’s dying blessing. 
Then the next one was brought in and she did the 
same, and gaveita message. At last a little infant 
was brought in, and she took her little child and 
hugged it and kissed it, and they saw that the excite- 
ment was becoming too great for her, and they took 
the little child away from her, and as they did it she 
looked up into her husband’s face and says, “‘I charge 
you to bring all these children home with you.’’ 
And so the Captain of your salvation and mine 
charges us to bring our children home withus. The 
promises are not only to us, but to our children; 
and what He wants is to have you and I have faith 
to believe that He isready and willing to do it, and 
that He will honor our faith. Wehave got to work 
as well ashave faith. We must first have faith. We 
must first have faith to believe that God will do it, 
and then we must work for their salvation; we must 
use every means in our power to bring them toa 
knowledge of Jesus Christ. Let us not only bring 
them to God and prayer around our family altars, 
and in our closets, and in these public meetings; 
but, my friends, let us talk with them; let us try in 
every way we can to bring them to the Son of God. 

And then let me say another thing. Let us have 
faith to believe that they can come early to Christ. 
I believe that there is many a father and mother 
that is skeptical on this point. They have got the 
idea that their children ought to grow up to man- 
hood and womanhood before they can be brought to 
a knowledge of the truth as it is in Christ. 

Many of them have got the idea that they must 
have the seed of death sown in their hearts; that 
they must have some of these tares sown in their 


FAITH. 347 


hearts before they can have the seed of the king- 
dom; that they have got to see some of the world, 
and they have got to be tempted and led, you might 
say, into bondage, into sin, before they can be saved. 
I believe that is one of the delusions of the evil one. 
I believe it is the privilege of every father and 
mother to bring their children to Christ so early 
that they cannot tell when they came. It is a priv- 
ilege for us to take them in the earlier days of child- 
hood, when they can just lisp the name of papa and 
mamma, and teach them to lisp the name of Jesus 
Christ, and teach them in their earlier childhood to 
love Him and to serve Him. 

I remember, many years ago, I was urging this in 
the State of Michigan, an old man jumped up at the 
close of the meeting and said, ‘“‘I want to indorse all 
that young man hassaid. Sixteen years ago I was 
in a heathen country. My wife died and left me 
with three little children. The first Sabbath after 
her death, my oldest little girl—Nellie, ten years 
old—came to me and says: ‘Papa, can I take the 
children into the bed-room and pray for them as 
mother used to do on the Sabbath?’’’ Let me say 
to you my friends, there is the power of example. 
If I should be called away and leave my children in 
this cold, unfriendly world at an early age, I would 
rather have them come to my grave and be able to 
say I was more anxious for their eternal welfare 
than for their earthly prosperity. Well, this old 
man said, when the children came out from the 
chamber where they had been praying, he noticed 
that they all had been weeping, and he called to 
his little girl and said, ‘‘Nellie, what have you been 
weeping about?’ ‘‘Why,” she says “we could not 


348 FAITH. 


help but weep. I made the prayer that mother 
taught me to make, and (naming her little brother) 
he made the prayer mother taught him; but little 
Susie didn’t use to pray. Mother thought she was 
too little to pray, and when we prayed, little Susie 
made a prayer and we could not help but weep.”’ 
‘“What did she say?’’ ‘‘She put her little hands 
together and says, ‘Oh, God you have come and 
taken away my dearmamma. I have no mamma to 
pray forme. Won’t you please make me just as 
good as my mamma was for Jesus’ sake. Amen.’ ’’ 
That child before she was four years old gave evi- 
dence of being a child of God. Fathers, do you 
suppose your children can come that early? 

Mothers, have you got faith to believe that you 
can bring your children that early to the Son of 
God? He will say to-night, as He did when on 
earth, ‘‘Suffer the little children to come unto Me, 
and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of 
heaven.’’ And in this month, which I hope will be 
a harvest time, let us bring our children to the Son 
of God. Let us labor for their salvation. Father, 
mother, hear the voice of the Son of God to-night 
saying, ‘‘Bring them unto Me.’’ He will not cast 
them out. He will bless them. 

And let me say to you, Sabbath-school teachers, 
this a grand time for you to work. I never have 
known a Sunday-school teacher in these special 
efforts which we have made in cities, who has laid 
herself or himself out to bring his class to Christ— 
I have scarcely ever known it to fail. This is a grand 
opportunity now for you to go and bring the chil- 
dren in your classes to Him. Perhaps you will say 
they are too young to be converted. They are wild, 


FAITH. 349 


it may be. They are thoughtless. They are care- 
less. They are indifferent. O, let us not be look- 
ing at them, but let us look above and remember 
that the power is yonder, and Christ is the power. 
You cannot tell what may be the result of bring- 
ing your Sunday-school class to the Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

I remember being in a place a few years ago, and 
I was the guest of a friend, and in his house there 
was a young lady that had a Sunday-school class in 
the afternoon, and I happened to have a meeting 
the first afternoon I was there, and I noticed that 
teacher in my meeting, and when I got home I said, 
“How was it you were at the meeting this afternoon; 
I thought you had a Sunday-school class?”’ ‘‘Well, 
so I have, Mr. Moody, but,” she says, ‘‘I only have 
five little boys, and as I thought it would not do 
much harm I left them to-day.’’ Whenever you 
hear a Sunday-school teacher talking that way you 
may believe that he does not understand the worth 
of asoul. Five little boys! Why, dear teacher, do 
you know that in that class there may be a Luther? 
In that little tow-headed German boy there may 
slumber a reformation. There may come power 
upon him that he may go out and be a blessing to 
the world. Youcan’t tell when you call a little boy 
to Christ what he may become. He may be a White- 
field, or a Wesley, or a Knox, ora Bunyan. Eter- 
nity alone can tell what is to be done when we bring 
a soul to Christ. 

Now, Sabbath-school teachers, this is a golden 
opportunity. Let us work together; let us pray 
together, and not rest at night until we see those 
we are responsible for brought to Christ. Let us 


350 FAITH. 


labor to bring them to the Lord Jesus Christ, and if 
we labor faithfully, He will not disappoint us. 

I remember the inspiration that I got for this work 
the very first soulthat Iled to Christ. I can remem- 
ber what a new life was awakened in me, and I 
trust I have not been the same man from that day to 
this, and I hope there will be a great many workers 
in this city of Cleveland that will be roused to go 
out and work for souls. It is the highest privilege 
onearth. There is nothing like it to be a worker 
with God; to be instrumental in bringing souls to 
Christ. 

I want to tell you just a little incident that roused 
me. Iwas a nominal Christian for a number of 
years; but, my friends, I would rather die than go 
back to that kind of life—having a name to live, and 
no power, no life, and not able to say there is one 
who has been led to Christ by-my influence—to be 
a professed disciple of Jesus Christ, and not be able 
to say there is one solitary soul that has been led to 
Christ by my influence. How does that professed 
Christian live on year after year, when he had such 
a glorious privilege to work for Christ and win souls 
for Him? And I believe to-day what we want is to 
get the laity aroused. What we want is to get the 
pulpit and the pew united, until Christianity becomes 
a living power on the face of the earth. I do not 
fear your infidelity. I do not fear your false isms 
cropping upon the earth half as much as I do these 
cold formalisms coming into the church of God. 
Let me tell you what awakened me. I had a large 
Sunday-school in Chicago, and I was satisfied with 
having large numbers interested. We were sowing 
seed, and I said it was going to spring up sometime, 





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FAITH, 353 


but I did not know when. ‘There are a great many 
people who are all the time sowing seed. What 
would you say of a farmer that was always sowing 
seed and never harvested? You want to sow with 
one hand and reap with the other, and if we look 
for an immediate harvest we shall have it. 

I was just in that condition. I was sowing and 
sowing. I hada hall over a meat market, and over 
in a corner I had a class of wild, thoughtless, friv- 
olous young misses. I had more trouble with that 
class than with all the other classes of the school; 
but I had, I thought, the best teacher in the school 
in that class. He was there every Sunday, and held 
their attention pretty well. But one Sunday he was 
absent, and before I could get around to his house 
to find out what was the matter, he came down to 
my store. He was pale. He took a seat upona 
box, and he said, ‘‘I have been bleeding again at 
my lungs, and have got to give up business. The 
doctor tells me I can’t live much longer, and I have 
closed up my business, and am going home to my 
mother in the East to die.’’ Then he began to 
weep. ‘“‘Well,’’ I says to him, ‘‘you are not afraid 
to die?’’ ‘‘No,’’ he says; ‘‘Mr. Moody that does not 
trouble me, but my Sunday-school class; I will meet 
them on the day of judgment; not one of them is 
converted. If I had been faithful, some of them 
might have been saved; but now I am called away 
from them. I never shall meet them again in this 
world. What will I say when I meet the Judge?’ 
The poor man’s heart was broken. I said: ‘‘Sup- 
pose we go and see them.’’ He said when he had 
strength he did not go, and now he had lost his 
strength and could not go, I said, “‘I will take you 


354 FAITH. 


in a carriage.’’ I took that man out in a carriage; 
we went from house to house. He was so weak he 
reeled on the sidewalk. When he got in the house, 
he would say to Margaret, to Mary or to Jane, call- 
ing them by their first name, ‘‘I have come to talk 
to you about coming to Christ;’’ and then would 
plead withthem asadyingman. When his strength 
gave way I took him home, and the next day we 
started out again, and at the end of ten days the 
last one was converted. We had a meeting at his 
house, and it was at that meeting that I caught a 
new inspiration. It was at that meeting that God 
gave me to see the worth of a soul. I do not know 
that I ever spent such a night before that time. 
The whole class was gathered into the fold. That 
teacher got down on his knees and prayed that the 
Lord might give His angels charge over them. 
When we got through, one of the young converts 
began to pray, and another and another prayed for 
their teacher—that they might be kept faithful, and 
that the Lord might be with him in his sickness; and 
we bid him’ good-bye, after singing ‘‘Blest be the 
tie that binds our hearts in christian love.’’ It was 
a joyful meeting with all its sadness. The next 
night he was to leave our city about sundown. I 
went to the station to bid him good-bye, and without 
speaking to anybody about it or expecting it, I found 
at the depot before the train started the whole class 
was there. Standing on the platform, the class 
gathered around him. It was the most beautiful 
sight ever I saw. They sang, ‘‘We meet to part 
again, but when we meet on Canaan’s shore there 
will be no parting.’’ Andas the train started, with 
his pale finger he pointed to heaven, until the 


FAITH. | 355 


wheels rolled him out of the city; but, my friends, 
his influence lives in Chicago to-day. Let us work 
and bring our children to Christ and our influence 
will be felt hundreds of years hence. What we do 
for God is forever. It is eternal and everlasting. 
So let us be up and about our Master’s work. Let 
us hunt up and bring some soul to Christ. Now, 
my friends, do you believe that you can be instru- 
mental in God’s hands in leading one soul to Christ 
during the next thirty days? I do not believe there 
is a man or woman in this house but may be instru- 
mental in leading some one soul to Christ if he tries. 
Hear the voice of the Master to-night—‘‘Bring him 
unto Me.” Let us pray. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


REPENTANCE. 


But now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.— 
Acts xvii, 30. 


You will find my text to-night in the 17th chapter 
of Acts, a part of the 30th verse: ‘‘Commandeth 
all men everywhere to repent.’’ That must take all 
in. Itisanothercommand. ‘Then in the next verse 
he tellsus why: ‘‘Because he hath appointed a day 
in the which He will judge the world in righteousness 
by that man whom He hath ordained; whereof He 
hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath 
raised him from the dead.’”’ 

The day is appointed. We do not know anything 
about the calendar of heaven. God has kept that 
appointment in His own mind. We do not know 
just the day, but the day is appointed, the time is 
fixed, and God is going to judge this world. So He 
* sends out a proclamation and commands all men now 
everywhere to repent. And if you donot want to be 
brought into judgment and be judged, you had bet- 
ter repent; turn to God, and let Jesus Christ be 
judged for you, and escape the judgment. Itisa 
great thing to get rid of the judgment. ‘‘There is 
no condemnation to him that is in Christ Jesus.’’ 
That is, there isno judgment. Judgment is already 
past to the believer—to the man that has repented 


306 


REPENTANCE. 357 


of his sins and confessed them, and turned away 
‘from them, and God has put them away. They 
never again shall be mentioned. We readin Ezekiel 
that not one of our sins have been mentioned; that 
they have been forgiven; therefore God calls upon 
all men everywhere now—not some future time— 
but now, right here to-night, to repent. 

As we look at the beginning of the gospel of this 
dispensation, you will find that John the Baptist, 
the forerunner of Christ, that his voice just rung 
through the wilderness of Judea, and that he had 
but one text; you might say his text was one word, 
““Repent, repent, repent.’’ That was hiscry. He 
kept it up until he met Christ at the Jordan, and 
then he changed the text, and he had but one text 
after that: ‘‘Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh 
away the sin of the world.”’ 

He first called to repentance, but when Jesus 
Christ commenced His ministry, he took up that 
wilderness cry and echoed it again over the plains 
of Palestine—‘*‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven 
is at hand.’’ When He sent out the twelve, He 
told them to go into every town and make this 
proclamation: ‘‘That the kingdom of God was 
coming nigh, and men must repent. If they wanted 
to get in His kingdom, they must enter through 
that door of repentance.’’ When Hesent out the 
seventy, two by two, He gave them instructions 
that they should just say, ‘‘Repent, for the king- 
dom of heaven is at hand.”’ 

Then we find, after Christ had ascended again into 
glory, Peter took up that cry on the day of Pente- 
cost, and as he preached through Jerusalem to sin- 


358 REPENTANCE. 


ners that they must fepent, the Holy Ghost came 
down and testified to what Peter was saying. 

Now, we find in this text Paul is here in Athens 
raising that wilderness cry again, and commands 
men now and everywhere to repent. There is no 
such thing as a man getting to heaven until he 
repents. You may preach Christ and offer Christ, 
but man has got to turn away from sin first, as we 
tried to show you last night. ‘‘Let the wicked for- 
sake his way, the unrighteous man his thoughts, and 
turn unto the Lord.’’ Repentance is turning. 

Before I commence to preach about repentance, I 
want to tell you what itis not. The fact is, I be- 
lieve this great truth that has been talked so much 
in the church that every school-boy ought to be 
acquainted with it, is the very thing we are in dark- 
ness about. 

It seems to me as if Satan has thrown dust in the 
eyes of the people; that the god of this world has 
blinded us to these things. I find a great many 
people have a false idea of what repentance is. 

Now, repentance is not fear. Mark that. I may 
stand here to-night, and I may perhaps picture to 
you the judgment, and I might alarm some people 
here, and you may get scared and it would look as 
if it was true work, but it would pass away like a 
morning cloud. I might hold a revolver to your 
head and say, ‘‘Repent, or I will blow your brains 
out,’’ and you would say, “‘I will repent, I will re- 
pent,’ but when the revolver was taken away, you 
would forget all about it. That is taking place all 
the while. Some people think they have got to be 
wrought up. Something has to be said to alarm 
them. You go out to sea, or out here on Lake Erie, 


REPENTANCE. 359 


and let a storm come up; fifteen minutes before the 
storm the sailors, and perhaps the captain, are 
cursing and blaspheming. A storm comes up and 
they go to praying. You would think they were 
saints. The storm. passes away, and they are out of 
danger and they are swearing again. That is fear. 
That is not repentance. It seemed asif the king 
of Egypt was really coming to the Lord, to hear him 
talk when he heard the thunderings, and judgments 
of God upon him. The king was alarmed. It 
looked as if he was coming to the Lord, but he was 
only scared. The moment those judgments were 
off he forgot all about it. That was not repentance 
at all. A man may be scared and not repent. A 
man may be alarmed and not-repent. Many men, 
when death comes and takes a look at them, begin 
to be alarmed. They get well and forget all about 
it, 

Repentance is not feeling. Mark that! There 
are hundreds and thousands of people in Cleveland 
who just have their arms folded and they are wait- 
ing for some queer kind of feeling. They think 
repentance is a certain kind of feeling; that they 
have to feel very bad, very sorrowful—got to weep 
a good deal, and then they will be in a condition to 
come to God. Repentance is not feeling. A man 
may feel very bad and not really repent. I venture 
to say if you go down to Columbus to the state pen- 
itentiary you cannot find a man in there that does 
not feel sorry he got caught, awful sorry—shed a 
great many tears in court on his trial. The trouble 
is they are sorry they got caught. That is all. 
They feel very bad they got caught. But there is 
no true repentance; no turning to God. Feeling is 


360 REPENTANCE. 


not repentance. Last winter I preached seven 
months to the convicts in the Maryland peniten- 
tiary. I found men just the same under lock and 
- key that they are out. There were a great many 
there in that prison who had passed through their 
trial, been sentenced ten years or five years to the 
penitentiary, that had no signs of repentance there 
at all. They were very sorry they got caught. 
They would like to get out very well, and perhaps 
they would do the same thing right over when they 
got out. That is not repentance at all. 

A man may be dishonest in some business 
transaction, and bring ruin upon himself and his 
family; he may weep bitter tears for weeks and for 
months, and yet not repent. But he is very sorry 
he got caught. These defaulters are all sorry they 
got caught. I do not know how many of them truly 
repent. If they truly repent, God forgives them 
whether man does or not. They may shed a great 
many tears and not repent. 

I tell you we have got to wake up to the fact shia 
repentance is not feeling. It is something higher, 
deeper, broader than just mere sentiment or feel- 
ing. A man may weep, and brush away the tears 
and forget all about it. 

And then repentance is not remorse. Judas had 
remorse. He did not repent towards God. He was 
filled with remorse and despair, and went out and 
hung himself. That was not repentance. There is 
a difference between remorse and repentance. 

Then repentance is not penance. Some people 
think they have got to put that in the place of re- 
pentance. They think if they just do penance 
they are all right. Suppose I go down to Lake Erie 


REPENTANCE. 361 


and stand all night up to my neck in the water till 
daylight, is that repentance? Will I be more ac- 
ceptable to God to-morrow night because I have 
been down there in the lake all night and stood in 
the water up to my neck? That is not repent- 
ance, 

Conviction is not repentance. A man may be con- 
victed that he is wrong and not repent. I may re- 
main for years under conviction and not repent. 

Repentance is not praying. A great many peo- 
ple think they are going to settle this question by 
going off to pray and asking God to forgive them, 
and they go right on living the same way they have 
been living. 

Repentance is not forming a few good resolu- 
tions. It is not resolving that we will be better and 
do better in the future and just go right on. 

Repentance is not breaking off from some sin. 
Thatisnot repentance. Suppose a vessel has sprung 
a leak. There are three holesinit. You stop up 
two of them and leave one of them open. Down 
goes the vessel. That is enough to sink it. And so 
some men say, “Well, I will break off part of my 
sins.’’ Suppose you are guilty of a hundred and 
break off ninety-nine of them and leave one, and go 
on committing that one. That one is enough, my 
friends. 

If God drove Adam out of Eden on account of one 
sin, do you think He will let you into the Paradise 
above with one sin upon you? If God would not let 
Adam stay in Eden—that earthly paradise—with 
one sin upon him, do you think He is going to allow 
sinners into that heavenly Paradise above with one 
sin upon them? So, it is not just breaking-off part 


362 REPENTANCE. 


of our sins and leaving part of them, but it is leav- 
ing the whole of them. 

Perhaps you say: ‘‘Then what is repentance? If 
it is not fear, if it is not feeling, if it is not prayer, 
and if it is not forming a few good resolutions and 
doing penance, what is it?’’ 

Listen, my friends. Repentance is turning right 
about—in other words, as a soldier would call it, 
“right about face.’’ As some one has said, man is 
born with his back towards God. When he truly 
repents he turns right around and faces God. Re- 
pentance is a change of mind. Repentance is an 

after-thought. 

' Now, I might feel sorry that I had done a thing, 
and go right on and doit over again. You see re- 
pentance is deeper than feeling. Itis action. Itis 
turning right about. And God commands all men 
everywhere to turn. 

Let me read to you here a verse or two from the 
twenty-first chapter of the gospel according to 
Matthew: ‘‘What think ye?’’ These are the words 
of the Lord Jesus Christ. ‘‘What think ye? A 
certain man had two sons; and he said to them: 
‘Go work in my vineyard.’ One of them said, ‘I 
will not go.’ The other said, ‘I will go, sir,’’’ and 
went not. But the man that said he would not go 
repented and changed his mind—an after-thought, 
you see—and turned and went and didit. ‘‘Now,’’ 
says Christ, ‘‘which of the two sons did his father’s 
will?’ ‘‘Well, the man that repented.’’ And 
Christ just held that right up to the people. That 
is what the Lord wants—to have a man turn right 
about—not try to justify himself in his sin, but 
acknowledge his sin, confess his sin, and turn from 


REPENTANCE. 363 


it; and the moment a man is willing to do that, that 
moment God is ready and willing to receive him. 
Now, I think I can use an illustration that you can 
get hold of. Suppose I want to go to Chicago to- 
night. I go down to the depot. I do not know 
much about the trains in Cleveland. I see a man 
there whom I take to be connected with the depot, 
and I ask him, ‘‘Is this train going right to Chi- 
cago?’ “‘Yes.”’ I take my bag and jump right 
aboard that train. I get comfortably seated and 
my friend, Mr. Doan, comes down and he says: 
““Mr. Moody, where are you going?’ And I say, 
““Going to Chicago.’’ ‘‘Well, you are on the wrong 
train. That train is going off to New York.’’ “I 
think you are wrong, Mr. Doan; I just asked a man 
who is a railroad man, and he told me this train was 
going to Chicago.’’ ‘‘Well, sir, I tell you you are 
wrong. That train is not going to Chicago at all; 
it is going to take you right in an opposite direction. 
That train is going off to New York, and if you 
want to go to Chicago, you must get out of that 
train and get aboard another.’’ I do not believe 
him at first. ‘‘Well,’’ he says, ‘‘but I have been here 
in Cleveland for twenty-five years. I know all about 
these trains. I go to Chicago and New York a dozen 
times a year. I am constantly taking these trains. 
Iam having friends nearly every week that take 
these trains, and I come down here, and I tell you 
that I am right and you are wrong, sir. You are on 
the wrong train.’” At last, Mr. Doan convinces me 
that I am on the wrong train. That is conviction. 
But, if I do not change trains, I will go to New 
York in spite of my conviction. That is not repent- 
ance. I will tell you what is repentance; grabbing 


364 REPENTANCE. 


my bag and running and getting on the other train. 
That is repentance. 

Now, you are on the wrong train, my friends, and 
what you want is to change trains to-night. You 
are on the wrong side of this question. You are for 
the god of this world, and the world claims your in- 
fluence. God commands all men now everywhere 
to repent. Change trains! Make haste! There is 
no time for delay! It is a call that comes from the 
throne of God for every man, woman and child in 
this audience. Repent! If you die without repent- 
ance, whose fault is it? God has called you; God 
has commanded you, and if you will not obey that 
command, if you will not repent, and you die in 
your sins, no one is to blame but yourself, mark 
that! No one isto blame but yourself, for God has 
commanded you. 

Now, the question is, what will you do with this 
command? Will you repent? Will you this very 
night, and this very hour, change trains? 

I will give you another illustration. There is go- 
ing to be an election in this State to-morrow. Sup- 
pose you belong to a party up till to-night and you 
thought you were right; but to-night you become 
convinced that the party you are in is wrong. You 
become thoroughly convinced that if the party suc- 
ceeds it is ruin to your state government. You are 
a patriotic man and you love the government. 

Now, some men say, ‘Can a man repent all at 
once?’’ I say he can. A man may come in here 
to-night a strong democrat, or he may come in here 
a strong republican, and he may change inside of 
twenty-four hours. You know that, don't you? If 
you belonged to a party and you were thoroughly 


REPENTANCE. 365 


‘convinced to-night that you were in the wrong 
party, do you tell me you could not change to-night 
and join the other party and go out to the polls and 
go to work to-morrow and be on the other side of 
the question? You can do it if you will. 

Now, my friends, we will not bring up this ques- 
tion of parties. I have nothing to do with that, I 
only use it as an illustration. There is one thing I 
do know; you are on the wrong side of this ques- 
tion. If you are away from God, and if you are 
fighting against the God of heaven, you had better 
change trains at once, hadn’t you? Do it to-night. 
Make up your mind to-night that you will cast your 
lot with God’s people—that you will just change 
trains. : 

Look at that train the other night on the Michi- 
gan Central road near Jackson. Do you tell mea 
man cannot repent all at once? Do you tell me that 
the engineer of that train could not have whistled 
down brakes and turned that train back if he had 
had three minutes? He could if he had had time. 
He didn’t have enough time. Look at that steamer 
on the ocean. It is bearing down upon an iceberg. 
It is going at the rate of twelve knots an hour ina 
fog; they cannot see a rod ahead. All at once they 
reverse the steam.. In a minute more they would 
have gone on the iceberg, and all on that vessel 
would have gone down. There was a minute when 
they could have reversed the steam, and they just 
seized the opportunity and saved all on board. 

And so there isa moment, my friends, that you 
can repent and turn to God, and there is sucha 
thing as being a minute too late. Look at that 
White Star Line steamer*when five hundred were 


866 REPENTANCE. 


lost off the coast of Newfoundland. There was a 
minute that they just crossed the line, as it were. 
It was too late. 

So you may neglect your soul's salvation, and you 
may neglect to repent one day too long, and it will 
be too late. God commands you to doitnow. He 
says ‘‘Except a man repent, he cannot see the king- 
dom of God.’’ ‘‘Except ye repent, ye shall all like- 
wise perish.’’ ‘‘Except ye repent.’’ We have got 
to enter through the door of repentance into the 
kingdom of God. There is no other way. The 
highest and the lowest, the richest and the poorest, 
have all got to go in in the same way—on their 
hands and knees. 

I had a friend during the Chicago fire who got 
into one of those lanes there, and he became so 
stifled with smoke that he lay down to die. Butas 
he lay on the ground, he got beneath the smoke and 
crawled out on his hands and knees. And I tell you 
when a man gets on his knees and says, ‘‘God be 
merciful to me a sinner,’’ God will forgive him and 
bless him. And so, if there is a person to-night in 
this house that wants to be saved just now while I 
am talking, say, ‘‘God helping me, this night I turn 
my face toward heaven;’’ and if need be, God will 
send legions of angels to help you — your way up 
to heaven. 

Some men say they are afraid —_ will not hold 
out. But God says, ‘‘My grace is sufficient for 
thee.” ‘‘As thy faith, so shall thy strength be.”’ 
God is not a hard master. ‘‘My yoke is easy and 
my burden is light.’’ When men make deep and 
thorough work, and are willing to forsake all sin 
and turn to God with all their hearts, God helps 


‘REPENTANCE. 367 


them; then there is no trouble. God is not a hard 
master. 

Now, it is left to you, as I said last night. You 
can turn if you will. The will comesinagain. I 
read some time ago an account of some wealthy man 
who had an only son, who was a wild, reckless boy; 
but, although he was a wild, reckless boy, his father 
loved him. When the father was dying, he had his 
will made out, and he willed that boy all his property 
on one condition, and that was that that boy should 
repent of his sins. If the boy turned away from his 
evil associates, and his past life, and became a 
sober and an upright man, he should have all his 
estate. All he had got to do was to enter into it. 
The father put it in the hands of trustees on these 
conditions, and all that boy had to do was to turn 
from his past life, and his evil associates, and enter 
into it. He loved his sins so he would not do it, 
and he died in his sins. I do not know as I could 
have a better illustration than that. We have got 
an inheritance, incorruptible, kept in reserve for us, 
and the moment aman is willing to turn from his 
sins he can enter into that inheritance. God keeps 
it in store for all that wantit. But do not think for 
a moment that you are going to enter into that in- 
heritance—into those mansions Christ has gone to 
prepare, with sin upon you. It is utterly out of the 
question. In your sins it is impossible for you to 
enter into that inheritance. ‘‘Except ye repent ye 
shall all likewise perish.”” We cannot get into the 
kingdom of God without repentance, without turn- 
ing from sin, without laying hold of His righteous- 
ness and giving up our own. . 

So the question comes for us to settle, anditisa 


368 REPENTANCE. 


question we can settle if we will. We need not wait 
for this kind of feeling or that kind. It is to obey. 
Do you think God would command us to do some- 
thing we could not do, and then punish us eternally 
for not doing it? Do you think God would com- 
mand all mén now everywhere to repent, and not 
give them power to do it? Do you believe it? 
Away with such a doctrine as that! He would be 
an unjust God if He commanded me to do some- 
thing I could not do, and then punished me for not 
doing it. 

Suppose I should command my boy to leap a mile 
at one leap, and if he did not do it that I would flog 
him, and then because he didn’t do it I flogged him, 
what would you people in Cleveland say? You 
would not allow me to preach. You would say I 
was an unjust man. There is one thing, we must 
do as we preach about the love of God and mercy 
of God; we have also to stand up for His justice. 
He is a God of justice. God is not an unjust God. 
He does not command us to do anything we cannot 
do, and then punish us for not doing it. With the 
command comes the power to obey. He said to the 
man with the withered hand, ‘‘Stretch out thine 
hand.’’ The man might have said, ‘‘Well, Lord, I 
have been trying to stretch out that hand for thirty 
years, but I could not doit.’”’ But with the com- 
mand came the power. He said, ‘‘Stretch out thine 
hand,’’ and out came the old withered arm, and 
was made whole before it got out straight from his 
body; and so men are blessed in the very act of 
obedience. Not for just feeling or sentiment. 
What God wants is to have us obey. What is it to 
obey? It is to repent and bring forth fruit meet*for 


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REPENTANCE. 371 


repentance. What does that mean? If you cheat a 
man out of five dollars, don’t keep that five dollars. 
Give it back. If you are going to repent and turn 
to God, out with it! It don’t belong to you. If 
some young man cheats his wash-woman by not 
paying his wash-bill, or goes off without paying 
his boarding mistress, don’t think you can repent 
and turn to God without paying up every dollar, 
and bringing forth fruit meet for repentance. 

In John Wesley’s day, there was a hard case that 
came in among the Wesleys. He was one of the 
wildest men in Wales. He had been a drinking 
man for years. He used to take great pleasure in 
defrauding men. He would drink and not pay for 
his drinks. He would gamble, and not pay what he 
had lost. He owed debts to nearly everybody. But 
he was converted, and soon after he was converted 
he had a little legacy left him, and he bought a 
horse and saddle and he started, and went from 
town to town and hunted up his old creditors and 
paid them dollar for dollar. Then he would preach 
in those towns, and tell them what great things God 
had done for him. But he hadn’t enough money 
to go around and he sold the horse and saddle, and 
he paid up the very last dime. It is to pay the last 
dime—that is repentance. We want a revival of 
righteousness here in the West. If we want any- 
thing we want right living. We want a revival of 
honesty. When the Bible says, ‘‘Bring forth fruit 
meet for repentance,’’ it means to make restitution. 
If you ruin a man, do what you can to help that 
poor fellow. If you have helped to pull any down, 
do a you can to help him up. If it takes the last 

1 


372 REPENTANCE. 


dollar you have got, you must pay it, where you 
have taken from men dishonestly. 

When Mr. Sankey and I were in a town or city 
some time ago a man came to the inquiry room, 
and great drops of perspiration stood upon his brow. 
He was greatly excited and says, ‘‘Sir, I don’t want 
to talk with you before these people. Can’t we get 
off alone?’’ I took him off alone and he says, ‘‘The 
trouble with me is I am a defaulter.’’ ‘‘Well,’’ I 
said, ‘‘can you make restitution?’ ‘‘No, sir; not 
for the whole amount.’’ ‘‘How much is it?’’ ‘“‘Fif- 
teen hundred dollars.’’ ‘‘How much can you pay 
back?’’ ‘‘About nine hundred dollars. But,’’ says 
he, “‘if I pay that back, I will not have anything to 
support my wife and children.’’ I says, ‘Well, it 
don’t belong to you, anyhow. You don’t want it. 
No man can prosper with stolen money.’’ Says he, 
‘‘T want your advice; I have a chance to go into busi- 
ness, andif Ido not give back that money and go 
into business, I think I can soon make up the $1,500 
and pay it back.’’ I said, ‘‘No, that is the devil’s 
work. Don’t take that stolen money and go into 
business. You will not prosper. God will turn 
your way upside down. He will hedgeitup. ‘He 
will turn the way of the wicked upside down.’ 
What you want is to go to the root of the matter. 
Do right and God will bless you; but you can’t ask 
God’s blessing with stolen money.’’ I believe that 
is the reason so many do not flourish—they can’t ask 
God’s blessing upon their business on account of 
some dishonest act; they have lied in selling goods 
or something else. Says he, “‘I will disgrace my 
wife and children if I come out and confess.”’ I 
said, ‘‘Not necessarily. You can do it through a 


7 


REPENTANCE. 373 


taird party. Not only that, but I think those men 
you defrauded would forgive you if they saw true 
signs of repentance.’’ He said the terms were too 
hard. I said when he went off, ‘‘The spirit of God 
has hold of you. You will not sleep any. You will 
not have rest until you pay back that money. It 
will not only burn in your pocket, but burn in your 
soul.” He went off, and the next day he came back 
again, and he says, “‘Is there no other way?’’ Says 
I, “There is no other way. You don't want any 
other way. The right way is always the best 
way.”’ Still he wanted to take some other 
way. Says I, ‘‘Do right, and let the consequences 
be what they will.’’ He says, “‘I am afraid if I go 
back to those men they will just put me in prison.”’ 
I says, “‘You had better go into prison with a clear 
conscience than be out with a guilty one. You won’t 
have any peace with a guilty conscience. I have 
never heard of a man being put in prison that 
wanted to do right. Now, let me get those two men 
together and talk with them—see how they feel.”’ 

He slunk from that; he said he could not doit. I 
said, “‘You can if you will.” Finally, he consented, 
and we sent for the two men and got them in a room 
alone. He brought to mea great, long envelope, 
with $980.40—took the last penny out of*his wife’s 
pocket-book. “‘It is all there, is it?’’ says I. ’’Every 
cent; it is all there.’’ Those two men were sitting 
there in the room, and I took out the money and 
laid it down and told them the story, and great 
tears trickled down their cheeks. They said they 
would like to forgive him, and I went down and 
brought him up. It was one of the sweetest sights 
of my life. Those two men got down and prayed 


374 REPENTANCE. 


with that man. The question was settled. Then 
friends gathered around him and helped him. He 
is now a successful business man. God forgave him 
and his employers forgave him. He brought forth 
fruit meet for repentance. 

I believe the reason we do not have better work 
in this country is because there is so much sham. 
We do not go down to the bottom of things. O, 
may God give us a revival of honesty! Downright, 
upright honesty! That is what we want—right liv- 
ing! If it costs the right eye, out with it! That is 
what repentance means. It is not just mere senti- 
ment—going to meeting and singing and praying 
and having a good time, not squaring our life 
according to Scripture. God is going to draw the 
plummet line by and by, and He will have it right. 
We may deceive our friends and deceive one an- 
other, but let us keep in mind we cannot deceive 
God. If we attempt to cover up some sin, some 
dishonest act, and come to God with our prayers, 
He will not accept them. They will not go higher 
than our heads. 

Some people say they cannot get an answer to 
their prayers. If they would get down to the bot- 
tom of things, they would find out the reason. They 
would find that there was something not correct in 
their lives. They have not made the work deep and 
thorough. Let us pray for one thing in Cleveland, 
fet me ask the Christians in this house to-night to 
pray for one thing, and that is that the Holy Ghost 
may convict us all of sin. Let it begin in the pul- 
pit. If there is any one thing that I want more than 
anything else it is that God may show me everything 
in my life that is contrary to His will, and that He 


REPENTANCE. 375 


will give me grace enough to turn from it. I would 
rather do it—I would rather live so that God should 
be pleased with me than to have the applause of the 
world. I would rather live so that God could say, 
‘*Well done, good and faithful servant,’’ than just 
to accumulate a little wealth down here and have 
the applause of men for a few short years, and then 
know that I had not pleased Him. When will we 
wake up to the fact that it is more important to live 
to please God than man? 

And then how sweet our life will be, how pure 
our conscience will be, if God has forgiven every- 
thing, if we have brought everything to light, and 
turned from our sins, and the work has been deep 
and thorough! 

But one thought more before I close, and that is, 
what produces repentance? Paul says in the second 
chapter of Romans, and the fourth verse: ‘‘Or de- 
spisest thou the riches of His goodness and for- 
bearance and long suffering; not knowing that the 
goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?”’ 

O, that the Lord may open our eyes to-night and 
show us how good He has been to us all these 
years! 

Now, the world has a false idea of God. I will 
venture to say there is not an unsaved man or 
woman in this audience to-night, but hasa false idea 
of God, and the reason you cannot repent is because 
you do not turn from that false idea. You have got 
an idea that God hates you—is an enemy. That is 
as false as any lie that ever came out of the pit of 
hell. There is not any truthinit. God loves the 
sinner. He so loved the world, He gave His only 
begotten Son to save sinners. Christ died for the 


376 REPENTANCE. 


ungodly, not the godly; for the sinner, not for the 
righteous. I want to say to every poor lost soul in 
this audience to-night: God loves you with an ever- 
lasting love, although you may have hated Him, 
and trampled his laws under your feet. He loves 
you still. May the love of God to-night lead you to 
repentance. 

There is a story in English history of King Henry 
and his rebellious son, who rose up in arms against 
his father. The king was at last obliged to take his 
army and pursue that rebellious son. He drove 
him into a walled city in France, and while the poor 
fellow was in that city the father was besieging it 
for weeks and months. But the son fell sick, and 
while he was sick he began to think of the goodness 
and kindness of that father. At last it broke his 
heart, and he sent a messenger to his father to tell 
him that he repented of his past life in rebellion 
and asked his father to forgive him. But the old 
sire refused. He did not believe he was sincere. 
When the messenger brought back that message 
that his father would not forgive him, he requested 
them to take him out of his bed and lay him in 
sack-cloth and ashes and in that condition he would 
die. When they told his father of it and he went 
to look at that boy and saw him in sack-cloth and 
ashes, he fell on his face and cried as David did, 
‘‘O, my son, would God I had died for thee.’’ 

That father made a mistake. He did not know 
that boy’s heart. But God never makes any mis- 
take. O, sinner, if you ask Him to-night for par- 
don, He will pardon you. If you want the love of 
God shed abroad in your heart turn away from sin 
and see how quick He will receive you and how 
quick He will bless you. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


EXCUSED. 
I pray thee have me excused. Luke xvi. 1o. 


These three men that we read about to-night were 
not invited to hear some dry stupid sermon or lec- 
ture, but they were invited toa feast. The gospel 
in this parable is represented as a feast, and there 
was an invitation extended to these three men to 
come to the feast. ‘‘And they all with one consent 
began to make excuse.’’ It does not say that they 
had an excuse, but they made excuse—manufactured 
one for the occasion. 

Now excuses are as old as man. The first excuse 
that we hear of wasin Eden. The first thing we 
hear after the fall of man, was man making excuse. 
Instead of Adam confessing his guilt like a man, 
he began to excuse himself—justify himself. That 
is what every man is trying to do—justify himself 
in his sins. Adam said, ‘‘It is this woman that thou 
gavest me.’’ He hid behind her—mean, cowardly 
act. And it really was charging it back on God. 
“It is the. woman that thou gavest me.’’ Blaming 
God for his sin. From the time that Adam fell 
from the summit of Eden to the present time, man 
has been guilty of that sin, charging it back on God, 
as if God was responsible for his sin and God was 
guilty. 

377 


378 EXCUSED. 


Now, I venture to say that if I should go down 
among the congregation here to-night, every man 
that has not accepted this invitation would be ready 
with anexcuse. You have all got excuses. You 
would have one right on the end of your tongue. 
You would be ready to meet me the moment I got 
to you. If I met that excuse, then you would get 
another and you would hide behind that. Then, if 
I drove you out from behind that, piesa we get 
another. And so you would go on, hiding ehind 
some excuse-+making some excuse; “and if you 
should be “cornered up and could not think of 
one, Satan would be there to help you make one. 
That has been his business for the past six thousand 
years. He is very good to help man make excuses, 
and undoubtedly he helped these three men we read 
of here to-night. No sooner do we begin to preach 
the gospel of the Son of God than men begin to 
manufacture excuses. They begin to hunt around 
to see if they cannot find some reason to give for 
not accepting the invitation. Excuses are the cradle, 
in other words, that Satan rocks men off to sleep in. 
He gets them into that cradle of excuses that they 
may ease their consciences. 

But let me say to you, my friends, there is no man 
or woman in this assembly to-night that can give an 
excuse that will stand the light of eternity. All 
these excuses that men are making are nothing but 
refuges of lies after all. We read in the prophecy 
of Isaiah that God shall sweep away these refuges 
of lies. When a man stands before God he will not 
be making excuses. His excuses will all be gone 
then, and he will be speechless. 

We read of that man that got into the feast with- 


EXCUSED. 379 


out a wedding garment, and when the Lord of the 
feast came in he saw the man there. That man 
perhaps thought he could get in with the crowd. 
Some people say, ‘‘O, I will go with the crowd.’’ 
He thought he could get in with the crowd, and he 
would not be noticed. But that eye was keen to 
detect one that had not on the wedding garment. 
Do not think for a moment that God’s eye is not 
upon you? He knows how all these excuses are* 
made. Youcannot hide anything from Him. You 
may make excuses and put on a sort of garment, and 
think you are justifying yourself in living away from 
God and not accepting this invitation; but really it 
is nothing that will stand the light of eternity. 
Things look altogether different when you stand 
before Him. 

Did you ever stop to think what would take place 
in a city like Cleveland if God should take every 
man and woman that wants to be excused at their 
word, and should say, “‘I will excuse you.’’ God 
took those three men that we read of at their word. _ 
He said, ‘‘Not one of them that were bidden shall 
taste of my supper.’’ They spurned the invitation; 
they turned their backs upon it; and then God 
withdrew the invitation. ‘‘Not one of them that 
were bidden shall taste of my supper.’’ Suppose 
that that should take place in Cleveland, and then 
by a stroke of Providence he should sweep every 
man and woman in Cleveland that wants to be 
excused from this feast into eternity. Suppose that 
every man and woman that wanted to be excused 
from this feast should die inside of twenty-four 
hours. I think there would be plenty of room in 
this pbernacle to-morrow night for all that want to 


880 EXCUSED. 


come. ‘There would be a good many of your stores 
closed to-morrow. There would be no one to open 
them. Merchants, employes, clerks would all be 
gone. Every saloon in Cleveland would be closed 
up. Every rum-seller wants to be excused from this 
feast. Hecan’t get into the kingdom of God with a 
rum bottle in his hand.. ‘‘Woe be to the man that 
putteth the bottle to his neighbor’s lips.”’ He 
knows very well that if he accepts this invitation he 
has got to give up his hellish traffic. Every blas- 
phemer in Cleveland wants to be excused from this 
feast, because if he accepts this invitation he has 
got to give up his blasphemy. Every drunkard in 
Cleveland, every harlot, every thief, every dishonest 
man, every dishonest merchant would be gone. 
They want to be excused from this feast. Why? 
Because they have got to turn away from their sins 
if they accept of this invitation. The longer I live 
the more I am convinced that the reason men do 
not come to Christ is because they do not want to 
give upsin. That is the trouble. It is not their 
‘intellectual. difficulties. It is quite popular for 
people to say that they have got intellectual diffi- 
culties; but if they would tell the honest truth it is 
some darling sin that they are holding on to. They 
are not willing to give up the harlot; they are not 
willing to give up gambling; they are not willing 
to give up drinking, the lust of the flesh, the lust of 
the eye, and the pride of life. That is the trouble. 
It is not their intellectual difficulties as much as it 
is their darlingsin. The grass would soon be grow- 
ing in your streets in Cleveland if God should take 
every man at his word and excuse him from this 
feast and take him away. Things would look alto- 


EXCUSED. 381 


gether different in your city inside of a week if God 
should excuse you that want to be excused. And 
yet the moment that God sends out His invitation 
excuses just run right in. ‘‘I pray thee have me 
excused.’’ That is the cry to-day. Man prepares 
his feast, and there is a great rush to get the best 
seats. God prepares his feast—and what a feast it 
is! Thinkofit! Itis not often that common people 
like you and me get an invitation to a royal feast. 
There is many a man that has lived in Windsor 
Castle for fifty years, and has never got sight of 
Queen Victoria. There are men in London that 
stand high, men of wealth, men of position who 
never were invited into her palace. Men think it is 
a great honor to be invited into a king’s palace or 
the palace of a queen. But here we are invited to 
the marriage of the Lamb. We are invited by the 
Lord of glory to come to the marriage of His only 
begotten son, and men begin to make excuses. ‘“‘I 
pray thee, have me excused.”’ 

Now let us look for a moment at the excuses that 
these three men gave. The first man might have 
been very polite. Some men are very polite. Some 
are very gruff, and treat you with a great deal of 
scorn andcontempt. The moment you begin to talk 
to them they say, ‘‘You attend to your business and 
I will attend to mine.’’ But I can imagine this man 
was a very polite man and he said, ‘‘I wish you 
would take back this message to your Lord, that I 
would like to be at that feast. Tell him there is not a 
man in the kingdom that would rather be there than 
myself, but I am so situated that I can’t come. 
Just tell him I have bought me a piece of ground, 
and that I must needs go and see it.’’ Queer time 


382 EXCUSED. 


to go and see to land, wasn’tit? Just at that supper 
time. They were invited to supper, you see. But 
he must needs go and see it. He had not made 
a partial bargain and wanted to go and close 
the bargain. He did not have that good excuse. 
He had bought the land, and he must needs go 
and see it. - Could he not go and see this land the 
next morning? Could he not have accepted this 
invitation and then gone and seen his land? If he 
had been a good business man, some one has said, 
he would have gone and looked at the land before 
he boughtit. But the land was already bought, and 
the trade made. He did not say, “I want to-get 
the deed on record, because I am afraid some one 
else will get a deed of it, and get it on record first, 
and I will lose it.”” He had not got that good an 
excuse. The only excuse he had was, “I have 
bought me a piece of ground and I must needs go 
and see it.’’ You will see it was a lie right on. the 
face of it. It was just manufactured to ease that 
man’s conscience. He did not want to go to the 
feast, and he had not the common honesty to come 
out with it and say, ‘‘I don’t want to go to the feast, 
but just take back word that I have bought mea 
piece of ground and I must needs go and see it,”’ 
and away he went. How many men are giving 
their business as an excuse for not accepting this 
invitation! You talk to them about things pertain- 
ing to the kingdom of God, and they tell you they 
have got to attend to business; that business is very 
pressing. It does not say that this was a bad man. 
He might have been as moral as any man in Cleve- 
land. He might have held as high a position as any 
man in Cleveland. He might have ridden in his 
chariot. He might have been a very liberal man to 


EXCUSED. 383 


the poor. He might have been a very benevolent 
man. He might have given his substance, but he 
neglected to accept this invitation, and Christ teaches 
us plainly that if we neglect this salvation how shall 
we escape the damnation of hell. 

People say, ‘‘What have I done? I have not got 
drunk; I have not murdered; I have not lied; I have 
not stolen. What have Idone?’’ Iwill take youon 
the ground that you have not done anything—I will 
not admit that fora moment, but suppose I take you 
on that ground. Ifaman neglects salvation he will 
be lost. You see a man in yonder river, his oars 
lying in the bottom of his boat, and he is out there 
in the current, his arms are folded, and the current is 
quietly drawing him toward the rapids. Some one 
warns him: “‘Say, friend, you are hastening toward 
the rapids.’’ ‘‘No, I am doing nothing, sir. My 
arms are folded. What have I done?’ ‘“‘But you 
are drawing toward the rapids.’’ ‘‘I tell you, sir, I 
am not; I am doing nothing.’’ You may try to 
convince him but he will be blind. So indeed he is 
not doing anything, but that current is quietly draw- 
ing him toward the cataract, and in a few moments 
he will go over. Many a man is flattering himself 
that he is not doing anything, but let him neglect 
salvation and he is lost. 

The next man’s excuse was one manufactured for 
the occasion. It was not one whit better than the 
excuse of the first man: ‘‘Take back word to thy 
Lord that I cannot come. I have got pressing busi- 
ness. I have bought five yoke of oxen and I must 
needs go to prove them.’’ Asif he had to prove his 
oxen that night at supper time He had plenty of 
time to prove his oxen, He had bought them, 


384 EXCUSED. 


They were in his stall. But the fact was, he was 
like the first man; he did not want to go and had not 
the common honesty to say so, and so he says, “‘I 
have bought five yoke of oxen, and I must needs go 
and prove them.’’ He must go right off that night 
to prove them. That is hisexcuse. There is not a 
child five years old that cannot see that that excuse 
is just manufactured. 

These men began to make excuse. They did not 
have one—they manufactured excuses to ease their 
consciences. It was nothing but a downright lie; 
that is what it was. Let us call things by their right 
names. People think if they can make a sort of 
plausible excuse they are justified. But these ex- 
cuses are ae but refuges of lies. 

The third man’s excuse is more absurd than the 
others; ‘‘I have married me a wife, and therefore I 
cannot come.’’ Who likes to go to a feast better 
than a young bride? He might have taken his wife 
with him. He had no excuse. That was the ex- 
cuse he was hiding behind. ‘‘I have married mea 
wife, and therefore I cannot come.’’ If his wife 
would not go with him, he could let her stay at 
home, and he could go. This has got to be a per- 
sonal matter. We are not going to heaven in fam- 
ilies, as I said last night. It is a thing between you 
and your God. The invitation was extended to that 
man as the head of his own house. He was priest 
over his own household, and he had no excuse; but 
he just made up that excuse. 

Now, there is nothing on record, you might say, 
against those three men. You might say there 
were a good many things noble about those men. 
It does not say that they were licentious; it does 


EXCUSED. 885 


not say that they were drunkards; it does not say 
that they were dishonest; it does not say that they 
were thieves, but they only made excuses so as not 
to be at that feast. They did not want to accept of 
the feast. 

I notice some of you smile as I take up those three 
excuses; but I would like to ask this congregation 
this question: Have you a better one? Come! I 
see a young man laughing down there. Have you 
a better excuse yourself? Come! Eighteen hun- 
dred years have rolled away, and they tell us we are 
living in a very wise age, that we are living ina 
very intellectual age, that men are growing much 

_wiser, and that we know a good deal more than our 
fathers did; but with all men’s boasted knowledge, 
can you find a man to-day who has a better excuse 
than those three men had? During the last three 
years I have spent most of my time talking to peo- 
ple about their salvation—their individual difficult- 
ies, and I have yet to find the first man or the first 
woman that can give me a better excuse than those 
three men had. I tell you that man or that woman 
cannot be found to-day. I will defy any man to 
come forward to-night and give me a better excuse 
than those three men had. The excuses men are 
hiding behind to-day are fearful. There is not an 
excuse that you would dare to give to God. Things 
look altogether different when you come to stand 
before Him. 

Take a piece of paper, if you have it in your 
pocket, and a pencil and write down, ‘‘Why should 
I serve the God of this world? Second, Why should 
I serve the God of the Bible?’’ Then put down 
your reasons why you should serve the God of this 


. 


386 EXCUSED. 


world, and your reasons why you should serve 
the God of the Bible, and see how it looks; because 
it is clearly taught that we either serve the God of 
this world or the God of heaven. We cannot be 
neutral. There is no neutrality about this matter. 
We are either for God or against him. We cannot 
serve God and mammon. We are either serving the 
God of this world—that is, Satan—or we are serving 
the God of heaven. The line is drawn. You may 
not be able to see it, but God sees it. God knows 
the heart of every man and woman in this assembly. 
He knows all about us, and He sees right through 
the excuses we make. He looks at the heart. He 
does not look at the excuses you make. Those are 
only from the tongue. They are only manufactured 
in the head. He knows that the difficulty lies down 
in the heart. It is because you will not come unto 
Him It is not because men cannot come; it is be- 
cause men set their wills up against God’s will, and 
are not willing to yield. 

One of the popular excuses of the present day is 
this good old book, the Bible. It is amazing to hear 
some men talk. I have touched upon this a num- 
ber of times since I have come to Cleveland, But I 
find as I come out West a good deal of infidelity; 
men profess to be infidels. It is astonishing to hear 
them talk about the Bible—something they do not 
know anything about. I can find scarcely one of 
them that has ever looked into it and read it, and 
who knows anything about it. They have heard 
some infidel lecture—some scoffing, sneering man 
come along caviling at the Bible, and they have 
heard some few things that man has said, and they 
bring them out on all occasions. They will not look 


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EXCUSED. 389 


into,that Book and ask God to help them to under- 
stand it. If a man will be honest with God, God 
will be honest with him. There is no trouble about 
this Book; the trouble is with the life. 

Wilmot, the great infidel, as he lay dying, put- 
ting his hand upon that Book, said, ‘‘The only thing 
against that Book is a bad life.’ When a man has 
got a bad record against him, he wants to get that 
Book out of the way, because it condemns him; that 
is the trouble. The trouble is not with the Book; 
it is with your record and mine. Because that Book 
condemns sin we want to get itout of the way. Men 
do not like to be condemned; that is the trouble. 

Then men say they cannot understandit. Well, 
you and the Bible agree exactly. A man was tell- 
ing me some time ago that he could not understand 
the Bible. I said, ‘‘You and the Bible agree ex- 
actly.’’ He said, ‘“‘I don’t agree with the Bible at 
all.’’ ‘‘Well,’’ I said, ‘‘you agree exactly,’’ and I 
referred him to a passage in the prophecy of Daniel 
—‘‘Many shall be purified and made white and tried; 
but the wicked shall do wickedly, and none of the 
wicked shall understand.’’ That is what Scripture 
says. If aman is living in sin, God is not going to 
teveal to that man his secrets. 

I would like to ask those men who are giving this 
Bible as an excuse for not becoming Christians, who 
wrote that book? Did bad men write it? Itisa 
very singular thing that they should write their own 
condemnation, isn’t it? How that book condemns 
bad men! Bad men would not write their own con- 
_Gemnation, would they? They do not do it nowa- 
days, dothey? They are the last ones to write their 


390 EXCUSED. 


own condemnation. Well, if good men wrote a bad 
book, they could not be good, could they? 

Now, it seems to me, that if a man will stop to 
think a moment he will see that the trouble is not 
with the book. The trouble is with himself. And 
when a man bows to the will of God, that book be- 
comes food to his soul. Hecan feed on it, then; 
there is something to feed on. He gets life from 
it; he gets power, and he gets something that tells 
him how he can get victory over himself. I con- 
sider that the greatest triumph a man can have in 
this world. A man that knows how to rule himself 
is greater than he that taketh acity. Look at the 
misery and’ woe that has come into the world 
through that one door—men and women that cannot 
control themselves, that cannot control their tem- 
pers, their lusts, their passions, and their appetites. 
That book tells me how I can get victory over my- 
self; and it is the only book in the wide world that 
can tell a man how to get victory over himself. I 
haven’t time to dwell upon that excuse any longer. . 

There is another very common excuse, andI have 
heard it in Cleveland as much as any: ‘‘Why,”’ they 
say, ‘‘Mr. Moody, you know it is a very hard thing 
to be a Christian—a very hard thing.’’ When they 
tell me that I like to ask them, ‘‘ Which is the hard- 
est master, the devil’’—for we will call him by his 
right name, because every man that serves not the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and will have nothing to do with 
the God of the Bible, is serving the god of this 
world. ‘‘Now, which is the easiest master?”’ 

Christ says that His yoke is easy and His burden 
is light. Now, you go right along and say, ‘“‘That 
is alie.’’ You don’t say it right out in plain Eng- 


EXCUSED. 391 


lish, but we may as well talk plainly to-night. When 
you say it is hard to be a Christian you say that God 
is a liar; that it is an easier thing to serve the god of 
this world than it is the God of the Bible. Now, I 
want to say that I consider that one of the greatest 
lies that ever came out of the pit of hell; and how 
Satan can stand up in this nineteenth century and 
make men believe he is an easier master than the 
God of heaven, is one of the greatest mysteries of 
the present day. 

‘“The way of the transgressor is hard.’’ Blot it 
out if you can. Close up that book, and you will 
see the evidence of that fact all around you. There 
is not a day passes but you can read upon the pages 
of the daily papers, ‘‘The way of the transgressor 
is hard.’’ J wish I could drive that lie back into 
hell where it came from. 

You go over to the Tombs in New York city and 
you will find a little iron bridge running from the 
police court where the men are tried right in the 
cell. I think the New York officials have not been 
noted for their piety in your time and mine; but 
they had put up there in iron letters on that bridge, 
‘“The way of the transgressor is hard.’’ They know 
that is true. Blot it out if youcan. God Almighty 
said it. Itis true. ‘‘The way of the transgressor is 
hard.’’ On the other side of that bridge they put 
these words, “‘A bridge of sighs.’’ I said to one of 
the officers, ‘‘What did you put that up there for?’’ 
He said that most of the young men (for most of 
the criminals are young men. ‘‘The wicked don't 
live out their days’’—Put that in with it)—he said 
most of the young men as they passed over that iron 
bridge went over it weeping. So they called it the 


392 EXCUSED. 


Bridge of Sighs. ‘‘What made you put that other 
there—*The way of the transgressor is hard?’’’ 
““Well,’’ he said, ‘‘it is hard. I think if you had 
anything to do with this prison you would believe 
that text, ‘The way of the transgressor is hard.’ ”’ 

If a man will just look around him and keep in 
mind this one truth, “‘The way of the transgressor 
is hard,’’ he will be thoroughly convinced inside of 
twenty-four hours that that passage of Scripture is 
true. It is not that God’s service is hard. The 
trouble with men is they are trying to serve God 
with the old Adam nature. They are trying to 
serve God before they are born of God. Now, to 
tell a man in the flesh to serve God in the spirit, 
who is a Spirit, I would just as soon tell a man 
to try to jump over the moon and expect him to 
do it. He cannot do it. The natural man is not 
subject to the law of God and neither indeed can 
be. You are not to try to serve Gou until you are 
born of God, until you are born again, born from 
above, until you are born of the Spirit; and when a 
man is born of the Spirit the yoke is easy and the 
burden is light. I have beenin the service upwards 
of twenty years, arid I want to testify to-night that 
my Master is not a hard Master. What say you 
ministers here to-night? Do you find him a hard 
Master? Speak out, I thought you would say so. 

Ah, my friends, Ale is not a hard Master I want 
to have you remember that. No, He is not a hard 
Master. That is one of the lies coming from the 
pit. ‘‘My yoke is easy and my burden is light. /’ 
When a man submits his heart and will to God— 
takes Christ into his heart and lives a life of faith, 
it is delightful. 


EXCUSED. 393 


Now, I will tell you a good way to get at this. 
Put you people into a jury box. Just imagine you 
are on a jury to-night. I will take the most faithful 
follower the Lord Jesus has got in Cleveland. I 
don’t know who the person is, it may be a man or 
woman that the papers, perhaps, have no record of. 
God knows where His loved ones are. It may be 
some poor person off in some dark street, but it is 
one who has great faith and walks with God, whose 
life is as pure and spotless and blameless as any per- 
son that you can find; one that has been living with 
Jesus Christ, say fifty years. Let that person come 
up on this platform to-night and speak out and 
testify. You will seein his face that he has not had 
a hard Master. There will be no wrinkles in that 
brow. There will be light in the eye, there will be 
peace stamped upon that brow, joy beaming from 
that countenance. Heneed not speak; let that per- 
son stand here and by his face he will show he has 
had a good Master and an easy Master. 

Now, find the most faithful follower that the devil 
has gotin Cleveland. Let him or her come up here. 
Ah! you need not speak. I think you would say 
“that is enough.’’ You can tell by the looks, for 
the devil puts his mark upon his own. He stamps 
the mark deep. Men may try to get rid of it, but 
they carry the mark. And the Lord Jesus puts his 
stamp upon hisown. You take the two and draw 
the contrast and see if that lie that has come from 

Satan is not as greata lie as ever was told—that 
our Lord is a hard Master. hen people say they ~ 


would like to become a Christian, but itis a hard “ 


thing to be a Christian, they virtually say God isa 
hard Master and Satan is an easy one. 


894 EXCUSED, 


Now do you think it easy to go against your own 
convictions? Because that is what men do. They 
have to stifle conscience to serve the god of this 
world and turn the back on the God of the Bible. 
Do you think it is an easy thing to go against your 
own judgment? Forif a man will just stop and con- 
sult his judgment, his judgment will tell him that 
the safest, and wisest, and best thing he can do is 
to believe on the God of the Bible. Is it an easy 
thing to go against the advice and wishes of the best 
friends you have got? There is not a person in this 
congregation to-night that has got a true friend that 
would not advise him to serve the God of heaven. 
A man or woman that would advise you to serve the 
god of this world would be the worst enemy you 
could have. They would make the world dark and 
bitter. Is it an easy thing to trample a mother’s 
prayers under your feet? to break a mother’s heart 
and send her down to an untimely grave? That is 
easy, is it? Ah! many amanhasdoneit. Youcall 
that easy. Is it easy to go against the very best 
counsel and advice you have from the best and most 
loved friends you have got? Hear what the Master 
said to Saul: ‘‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? 
It is hard for thee’’—he did not talk about its being » 
hard for the disciples that Saul was going to put in 
prison, and, perhaps, have them stoned to death like 
Stephen. It was not as hard for Stephen to be 
stoned to death as it was for Saul to persecute him. 
“*Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard 
for thee to kick against the pricks.’’ It is hard for 
aman to contend with his Maker. It is hard fora 
man to fight against the God of the Bible. It is an 
unequal controversy. It is an unequal battle, and 


EXCUSED. 895 


God is going to have the victory. It is folly fora 
man to attempt to fight against the God of that 
Bible. 

Mr. Spurgeon uses this parable of a tyrant order- 
ing a subject into ‘his presence and saying to him: 
‘“What is your occupation?’’ ‘‘I ama blacksmith.” 
““Well,”’ says he, ‘“‘I want you to go and make a 
chain a certain length,’’ and he gave him nothing 
to make it with, ‘‘and on a certain day I want you 
to bring it into my presence.’’ That day came. 
The blacksmith appeared with his chain. The 
tyrant says: ‘“‘Take that chain and make it twice 
that length."’ He took it, worked a long time and 
made it twice the length, and brought it back. The 
tyrant says: ‘‘Take that chain and make it twice the 
length.’’ He made it twice the length and he had 
to get friends to help him get in the presence of the 
tyrant, and when he brought it back the tyrant says 
to his men standing around, ‘*Take that man and 
bind him hand and foot and cast him into a dun- 
geon ;’' and, says Mr. Spurgeon, ‘*That is what every 
man that is serving the god of this world is doing 
—forging the chain that is going to bind him.’’ A 
man goes into a saloon and takes a social glass. 
You step up and tell that man of his danger; that 
he is binding himself, and that by and by he will be 
bound hand and foot, and he will laugh you to 
scorn and mock you; but he goes on adding link 
after link to that chain. By and by the tyrant has 
got him bound, and he says: ‘‘Now, let us see vou 
assert your freedom.’’ Men say they don’t want to 
give up their freedom. There is no freedom until 
aman knows the Lord Jesus Christ. A man is a 


396 EXCUSED. 


slave to sin, to his passions and lusts until Christ 
snaps the fetters and sets him free. 

There was a man I used to know in Chicago that 
I talked to a great many times about drinking. He 
was a business man. He used to say: ‘“‘I can stop 
when I please.’’ One night I went out, and my 
family heard a strange noise. We lived on the cor-- 
ner. They heard him coming down the side street 
and he made an unearthly noise, and my wife said 
to the servants, ‘‘Are the doors locked?’’ He came 
around to the front door and tried to burst the door 
open. My wife says, ‘‘What do you want?’ ‘Oh,’ 
he says, ‘‘I want to see your husband.”’ ‘‘Well, he 
has gone down to the meeting.’’ Away he started. 
I was walking down to the church and he went by 
me. He was running so fast he could not stop. 
He went on arod or two and came back. The poor 
fellow was nearly frightened out of his life. He 
says, ‘‘I have got to die to-night.’’ ‘‘Oh, no, you 
are not going to die.’’ ‘‘I have got to die to-night.’’ 
‘‘Why,’’ says I, ‘‘what isthe trouble?’ and I found 
the man had drank so much that he was under the 
power of the enemy. I saw what his trouble was. 
‘‘Why,’’ he says, ‘‘Satan is coming to my house 
to-night to take me to hell,’’ andsays he, “‘I have 
got to go.’’ I begged of him to let me stay till one 
o’clock. He told me at one o’clock he will be back 
after me. I said, ‘‘He willnot come after you.”’ 
‘“‘He will; there is no chance of my getting away 
from him. He iscoming!’’ Well, I couldn’t con- 
vince that man. Poorman! He had been serving 
the god of this world, and now he was reaping what 
he had been sowing. On that night I had six men 
come to that man’s house and at one o’clock those 


EXCUSED. 397 


six men could not hold him. ‘‘Look there! see 
him! There they are! They are after me! He is 
taking me! He is going to take me to hell! Heis 
after me!’’ I thought that man would really die. 
Poor man! He is one of those men that thought 
God a hard master and the devil. was one that was 
easy. Thatis the way the devil serves his subjects. 
Reaping time is coming. Poor man, he suffered 
untold agonies that night. Yet men, with all these 
witnesses around them, will go on drinking. A 
young man will go from this Tabernacle to-night, 
and go down toa saloon and order a glass and drink, 
and go on drinking, until by and by delirium seizes 
him and the snakes crawl around his body, and 
would seem as if death would lay right hold of him. 
I can’t describe it. It would take some of these men 
that have been there to tell you aboutit. Oh, tell me 
that the devil is an easy master and that God isa 
hard one! Away with that lie; away with that 
excuse. My friends, never give it as long as you 
live. -It is false. 

When I was in Paris I saw a little oil painting, 
only about a foot square;it was at the Paris Exposi- 
tion in 1867. I was going through the Art Gallery, 
and on that painting there was a little piece of 
white paper that attracted my attention. I went 
and looked at that white paper, and it said, ‘‘Sow- 
ing Tares,’’ and there was the most hideous counte- 
nance I think Ieversaw. A man was taking out 
a handful of seed, sowing tares all around him, and 
wherever a tare dropped there grew up some vile 
teptile, and they were crawling up his body and all 
around him. Offin the distance was a dark thicket, 
and prowling around the borders of that forest were 


398 EXCUSED. 


wild beasts, and that hellish and fiendish look! 
What a fearful thing it is for a man to sow tares 
when he is going to reap them. And yet man 
goes on sowing with a liberal hand, and laughs and 
scoffs when we warn him and tell him what he is 
coming to by and by. The papers are full of it. I 
sometimes think these papers ought to preach the 
Gospel to the people—ought to warn them to flee 
from the wrath to come. 

Look at that case we have just had in a court in 
New Jersey. Look at that poor man. For four 
long days the jury has been out. I don’t know 
when my heart has been more touched than when I 
read that scene in court, when those little children 
climbed up on their father’s knee and said, *‘Papa, 
papa, come home. Mamma cries so much now you 
are away.’’ The law had him. Poorman! He 
reaped what he sowed. He had an uncontrollable 
temper. He took his weapon and shot down a 
coachman because he got mad with him. He never 
will get over it. He never can step back into the 
place where he was. The jury may acquit him. 
Poor man; he has got to reap a bitter, bitter reap- 
ing; what an awful thing sin is; and yet men will 
stand up with all these facts around them and tell 
you God is a hard master and the devil an easy one. 

Let us look at the scene in the court. A young 
man just coming into manhood, twenty-one, promis- 
ing, talented, gifted, beautiful young man, an only 
son; but he has been out drinking, and in a drunken 
spree helped kill a man, and now he is on trial for 
his life. In that court sit his father and mother 
and three lovely sisters. That is the only brother 
they have got. That is the only son they have got. 


EXCUSED. 399 


The jury bring in the verdict, guilty; the man is 
sentenced to the penitentiary for life. 

And with all these facts people stand up and say 
God is a hard master and the devil is an easy one. 
O, that the God of heaven may open our eyes 
to-night to show us how wicked it is to give these 
excuses, and that we will have to answer for them 
at the bar of God—for a person with an open Bible 
to say that God is a hard master and that Satan is 
an easy one. 

I remember of closing a young men’s meeting in 
Chicago a few years ago, when a young man got up 
and said, ‘“Mr. Moody, would you allow me to say a 
few words?’’ And I said, ‘‘Say on.’” ‘‘Well,’’ said 
he, “‘I want to say to these young men, that if they 
have friends that care for them, and friends that 
love them, and that are praying for them—lI want 
to say you had better treat them kindly, for you 
will not always have them. I want to tell you some- 
thing in my own experience. I was an only son, 
and I had a very godly father and mother. No 
young man in Chicago had a better father and 
mother than I had; and because I was an only child, 
I suppose, they were very anxious for my salvation, 
and they used to plead with me to come to Christ. 
My father many a time at the family altar used to 
break down in his attempt to pray for his only boy. 
At last my father died, and after my father died, 
my mother became more anxious than ever that I 
should become a Christian. Sometimes she would 
come and put her loving arms around my neck and 
say, “My boy, if you were only a Christian, I would 
be so happy. If you would take your father’s place 
at the family worship, and help me worship God, it 


400 EXCUSED. 


would cheer your mother.’ I used to push her away 
and say, ‘Mother, don’t talk to me that way; I don’t 
want to become a Christian yet, I want to see some- 
thing of the world.’ Sometimes I would wake up in 
the night and hear my mother praying, ‘O, God, 
save my boy!’ and it used to trouble me, and at last 
I ran away to get away from my mother’s influence, 
and away from her prayers. I became a wanderer. 
I did not let her know where I went. When I did 
hear from home indirectly, I heard that that mother 
was sick. I knew what it meant. I knew it was 
my conduct that was crushing that mother and 
breaking her heart, and I thought I would go home 
and ask her forgiveness. Then the thought came 
that if I did I would have to become a Christian, 
and my proud heart would not yield. I would not 
go. Months went on, and I heard again indirectly. 
I believe that if my mother had known where I was 
she would have come tome. I believe she would 
have gone around the world to find her boy. And 
when I heard that she was worse, the thought came 
over me that she might not recover, and I thought 
that I would go home and cheer her lonely heart. 
There was no railway in the town, and I had to 
take the stage. I got into town about dark. The 
moon had just begun to shine. My mother lived 
back about a mile and a half from the hotel, and I 
started back on foot, and on my way I had to go by 
the village grave-yard. When I got to it I thought 
I would go and see if there was a new-made grave. 
I can’t tell why, but my heart began to droop, and 
as I drew near that spot I trembled. By the light 
of the moon I saw a new-made grave. For the first 
time in my life this question came stealing over me, 


EXCUSED. 401 


Who is going to pray for my lost soul now? Father 
has gone and mother is dead. They are the only 
two that ever cared for me, the only two that ever 
prayed for me. I took up the earth and saw that 
the grave was a new-made grave; I saw that my 
mother had just been laid away; and, young men, I 
spent that night by my mother’s grave. I did not 
leave it until daybreak; but as the morning sun 
came up, right there by my mother’s grave, I gave 
myself away to my mother’s God, and then and 
there settled the great question of eternity, and I 
became a child of God. I never will forgive myself. 
I murdered that sainted mother.” 

Poor man! He was reaping what he sowed. Tell 
me that the way of the transgressoris easy! Tell 
me that God isa hard Master, and that the devil is 
an easy one! Young men, take the God of your 
mother; take the God of the Bible to be your God. 
Set your faces like a flint towards heaven to-night, 
and it will be the best night of your life. I wish I 
could say something to induce you to come to 
Christ. I wish I could see souls pressing into the 
kingdom of God. May the God of all grace touch 
every heart here to-night. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 


NO ROOM FOR HIM. 


And they laid him in a manger, because there was no room 
for them in the inn.—Luke ii. 7. 


For four thousand years the Jews had been look- 
ing for this child. Away back in Eden before 
Adam and Eve were driven out, God had promised 
that the seed of the woman should bruise the ser- 
pent’s head. And from Adam, all along down the 
ages, they had been looking out into the mist and 
into the future for this child. The prophets had 
prophesied of his coming and the nation had been 
in expectation. They were studying at that very 
time the prophecies to find out when he would ap- 
pear. And the first thing that we hear when He 
comes to this country, there was not room for Him 
in that little inn at Bethlehem. He might have 
come with all the pomp, and the glory and grandeur 
of the upper world. Perhaps if He had come with 
the glory of the angels, and the glory of the Father, 
and His own glory as He will by and by, the nation 
would have received Him then, because there would 
have been something that would have pleased the 
flesh. But the idea of His coming in such lowli- 
ness, the idea of His coming in such humility—the 
natural man did not like it. . 

Just think fora moment what He came for: He 

402 


NO ROOM FOR HIM. 403 


came to give rest to the weary; to seek and to save 
that which was lost; to give sight to the blind; to 
help those that needed help; to reveal the Father; 
to bring peace where there was trouble; to heal the 
broken-hearted. And yet there was not room for 
him! 

When the Prince of Wales visited this country, a 
few years ago, there was plenty of room for him. 
There was not any part of this nation that was not 
glad to give hima welcome. Every city was anx- 
ious that he should visit them. Every town and 
village and hamlet was open, and would have given 
him a royal welcome if he would have come to their 
place. When the princes of Europe have come to 
this country, what a welcome they have had. Al- 
though this is a republican government, yet we have 
been willing to give the princes of earth a welcome. 
And yet when the Prince of Heaven came down 
into this world, what a welcome did He receive? 
They laid Him in the manger, because there was no 
room for Himintheinn, But I can imagine some 
one says: ‘“‘They did not know Him. If they had 
known who He was they would have given Hima 
welcome.” I think you are greatly mistaken, be- 
cause we read that when the wise men arrived from 
the East in Jerusalem, and said to the king, ‘‘Where 
is He that is born King of the Jews?’’ not only Her- 
od, but all Jerusalem was thrown into trouble. 
Herod told those wise men to go down into Bethle- 
hem and inquire diligently about the young child, 
and bring him word, that he, too, might go down 
and worship the child. A lying hypocrite! He 
wanted to slay the child. 

Not only Jerusalem closed her doors against Him, 


404 NO ROOM FOR HIM. 


but when He went back to Nazareth, where He was 
brought up, and brought the best news that was 
ever brought to any town—when He went back to 
Nazareth with the glorious gospel of God, Nazareth 
did not want Him. They took Him out of the Syn- 
agogue; they took Him to the brow of the hill, and 
they would have hurled Him into perdition if they 
could. They did not want Him. _, was not 
room for Him. 

But, my friends, it is a very common saying now 
that the world has grown wiser and better, that we 
have been improving, and that-if Christ should re- 
turn, things would be different, that we are in light, 
and that He came in a dark age, that He was not 
then welcome, but He would be now. 

But I would like to ask you to think for a little 
while. What nation would give Him a welcome 
now? Do you know of any? They call America a 
Christian nation, but has America room for the Son 
of God? Does America want Him? Suppose it 
could be put to a popular vote; do you suppose this 
nation would vote to have Him come and reign? 
He would not carry a ward in this city; you know 
it very well. He would not carry a town or a pre- 
cinct in the United States; you know it very well. 
A great many of your so-called Christians would 
say, ‘‘We don't want Him, we are not ready.’ 
Things would have to be straightened up, and there 
would be a great change if Christ should come. 
The way men are doing business, I think, would 
have to be straightened out. Business men don’t 
want Him. You put it to the commercial men of 
the present day, and do you think they would want 
Him? Do you think all the tricks in trade would 


. 


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NO ROOM FOR HIM. 407 


be carried on if He were here? Do you think all 
this rascality that is going on at the present day 
under the garb of commerce—a great many very 
noble men are engaged in it—but do you think they 
want Him to come? When He comes He is going 
to reign in righteousness. I would like to have you 
tell me to-night of any class of people that would 
like to have Him come back. Do you think your 
politicians would want Him? Do you think the 
Republican party would want Him? Do you think 
they would give Him a welcome? Do you think | 
the Democratic party would want Him? What 
would they do with Him? They have not got room 
for Him; they do not want Him. All this rascality 
that is carried on in politics would have to be done 
away with if He came to reign in righteousness. 

Does your fashionable society want Him—what 
they call the “‘upper ten’’ of the present time? Go 
up on one of your avenues to some fashionable 
party, and seeitthey want Him. Begin to talk there 
about a personal Christ, and how precious He is to 
the soul, and you will not be invited a second time. 
They do not want Him, and they do not want you 
if you live godly in Christ Jesus. 

The fact is, there is not any room down here for 
the Son of God. Let a man get up in Congress and 
say, ‘‘Thus saith the Lord,’’ and they will hoot him 
out of it. Do you think all this trickery and rascal- 
ity that is carried on in halls of legislation would go 
on if Christ should reign in righteousness—men 
selling their votes, men buying votes? 

If you will stop and think a little while you will find 
that not only this country, but no other country, wants 
Him. Do you think England wants Him? I think 

93 


408 NO ROOM FOR HIM. 


that hellish traffic of liquor would have to be given 
up; the opium trade with China, and a great many 
other things would have to be givenup. That is 
called a Christian nation. Let a man get up in Par- 
liament and say, ‘‘Thue saith the Lord,’’ and he 
would be hooted down. The cry of the nation is, 
““Who is the Lord that we should obey Him?’’ The 
voice of the king of Egypt has been echoing through 
the world ever since. The world has not room for 
Christ. 

When He was here and went from village to vil- 
lage, and from town to town, He did not receive a 
welcome; they did not want Him. 

Eighteen hundred years have passed since then; 
His Gospel has been proclaimed over hill and dale; 
men have gone across seas and deserts and into all 
lands proclaiming the Gospel of Christ Jesus, and 
yet there are a great many people right within the 
sound of the Gospel that do not want Him. The 
moment that you begin to preach about the Son of 
God they put on a long face, as if you had brought 
them a death warrant; makes them gloomy. Oh! 
how the devil has deceived the world! How men 
are under the power of the god of his world! 
Jesus Christ did not come to cast us down, but to 
lift us up. He did not come to make life dark and 
gloomy; he came to make life sweet and beautiful; 
and when people make room in their hearts for the 
Son of God he will light them up. The heart that 
is sad and cast down will be light and joyful. He 
came to bless the world. He that was rich became 
poor for your sake and mine. He might have come 
with all the pomp and glory of that upper world. 
He might have been born in a palace and fed with 


NO ROOM FOR HIM. 409 


a golden spoon. But He passed by palaces and 
went into a manger, that He might get down into 
sympathy with the poorest and the lowest. His 
cradle was a borrowed one. The guest chamber 
where they instituted the supper was a borrowed 
one. 

The beast upon which He rode into Jerusalem 
was a borrowed one. ‘The only time we hear of 
His riding was on a borrowed beast. We find also 
that the sepulcher that they laid Him in was a bor- 
rowed one. The house He lived in was a hired one 
or a borrowed one. He that was rich and had all 
the glory of that upper world, who Himself created 
the world, became poor for your sake and mine. 

He laid aside all the honor and glory He had in 
that upper world; He laid aside those robes and 
came down here and tasted of poverty for your sake 
and mine, and yet the world turn up their noses 
and say, ‘‘I have no desire for Him; I don’t want 
Him.’’ ‘There is a passage in the 7th of John—I 
think the 7th and 8th chapters never should have 
been divided—the 7th chapter closes-up in this way 
—he had been lifting the standard very high that 
day, and many of his disciples left him. ‘‘Every 
man went into his own house, and Jesus went to 
the Mount of Olives,’’ the opening of the 8th chap- 
ter says. I can imagine that night was one of those 
lonely nights. He came into the world to bless the 
world, and the world didn’t want to be blessed. 
He came to do men good, and they didn’t want to 
receive any thing from Him. ‘‘And every man 
went into his own house.’’ Every door in Jerusalem 
that night wasclosed against Him. At one time he 
said, ‘‘The foxes have holes, the birds of the air 


410 NO ROOM FOR HIM. 


have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to 
lay His head.’’ Think of it—the little bird you see 
flitting by you has its nest—its home; the fox has 
its hole, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay 
His head. I used to think I would like to have 
lived in that day. I would like to have had a 
home in Jerusalem to have invited Him to be my 
guest, and to sit at His feet as Mary did, and let 
Him talk to me. But I suppose if I had lived at 
that day my door would have been closed against 
Him. But I remember thinking over it some time 
ago, and the thought came stealing over me: There 
is one place I can give the Son of God a welcome— 
just one place, and that is my heart. It is the only 
place He wants to dwell. Now if we make room in 
our hearts for Him, He will gladly come and dwell 
with us. ; 

There was a woman right in the midst of this 
darkness, when many disciples left Him, who came 
and invited Him to her home—a woman by the 
name of Martha. Ican imagine Martha coming 
from Bethany one day, and going to Jerusalem to 
the temple to worship, when the great Galilean 
Prophet came in, and she listened to His words, 
who spake as never man spake. And as the words 
fell from his lips they fell upon Martha’s ear, and 
she says: ‘‘Well, I will invite Him to my house.”’ 
It must have cost her something to do that. Christ 
was unpopular. There wasa hiss going up in Jeru- 
salem against Him. They called Him an impostor. 
The leading men of the nation were opposed to 
Him. They said He was Beelzebub, the lord of 
filth. They said He was an impostor, and a de- 
ceiver. And yet Martha invites Him to her home. 


NO ROOM FOR HIM. 411 


I hope there will be some Martha here to-night who 
will invite Him to her home, to be her guest. He 
will make your home a thousand times better home 
than it has ever been before. 

Martha invited Him home with her, We read of 
His going often to Bethany. That one act will live 
forever. The noblest, the best, the grandest thing 
Martha ever did was to make room in her home for 
Jesus Christ. Little did she know when she invited 
the Son of God to become her guest who He was; 
and when we receive Jesus Christ into our hearts, 
little do we know who He is. He is growing all the 
while. It will take all eternity to find out who He 
is. 

There was a dark cloud then over that home in 
Bethany. Martha didn’t know it. Mary did not 
see that cloud. It was fast settling down upon that 
home. It was soon going to burst upon that little 
family. The Savior knew all about it. Hesaw 
that dark cloud coming across that threshold. We 
read that He often lodged there. But afew months 
after He became their friend and guest, Lazarus 
sickened. The fever laid hold of him. It might 
have been typhoid fever. You can see those two 
sisters watching over that brother. The family 
physician is sent for to Jerusalem, and he comes out 
and does everything he can to restore him to life 
and health; but he sank lower and lower. Some of 
us know what it is when the doctor comes in and 
feels the pulse, begins to look very serious,and takes 
you off into another room, away from the patient, 
and tells you it is acritical case. Martha and Mary 
passed through that experience. There was no 
hope, and Lazarus must die. They thought if Jesus 


412 NO ROOM FOR HIM. 


were only there he would rebuke this disease. He 
might keep death from taking away their only 
brother. They sent a messenger a good ways off to 
tell Jesus his friend was sick, and this was the mes- 
sage: ‘‘He whom Thou lovest is sick.’’ They do 
not ask Him to come. They knew Jesus loved 
him, and He would come if it was for their good. 
The messenger at last returned. He found Christ 
and delivered his message. When he got back, he 
found that that cloud had burst upon that little 
home; that Lazarus was dead and buried. I see 
those two sisters as they gather around the messen- 
ger. They said, ‘‘Did you find Him?’ “Yes, I 
found Him.’’ ‘‘What did He say?’’ ‘‘He said the 
sickness was not unto death, and He would come 
and see him;’’ and for the first time I see faith 
beginning to stagger. Mary says, ‘‘Are you sure 
you understood Him? Did Hesay the sickness was 
not unto death?’’ ‘‘Yes.’’ ‘“‘Are you quite sure?’ 
“Yes.’’ °‘Well,’’ says Mary, “that is stranger gaae 
He is a prophet, He should have known that he was 
dead. Elijah would have known it. If He wasa 
prophet, why He must have known it. You hadn’t 
been away from the house an hour before Lazarus 
died. He was dead when you met Him.’’ ‘*Well, 
that is what He told me. He said He would come 
here and see him.’’ I see those two sisters as they 
kept watching for that friend to come and comfort 
them. How long those nights must have been as 
they watched and waited. I can imagine they did 
not sleep through the night. They listened to hear 
a footfall. The next day they watched and He did 
not come. The second night passed and He did not 
come. The third day came and He did not come. 


NO ROOM FOR HIM. 413 


The fourth day came and a messenger came run- 
ning in and says, ‘‘Martha, Jesus and His Apostles 
are just outside of the walls of the city. He is com- 
ing on toward Bethany.’’ Martha runs out and 
says, “‘If Thou hadst been here my brother had not 
died. Thou wouldst have kept death away from 
our dwelling.’’ Jesus answered, ‘“‘But thy brother 
shall rise again.”’ 

I would give more for such a friend than all the 
infidels in America. I would rather have sucha 
friend than have the wealth of the world. When 
death has come and taken my wife and taken my 
children, to have a voice say to me, ‘“‘I am the 
resurrection andthelife. He that believeth in Me, 
though he were dead, yet shall he live.’’ Little did 
Martha know whom she was entertaining when she 
invited Christ into her home. The world has been 
sneering at Martha ever since, but it was the grand- 
est, the sublimest and noblest act of her life. Oh, 
my friends, make room for the Son of God in your 
homes. Let the world go on mocking and scoffing. 
The hour will come when the cloud will burst on 
your homes, when death will come down in your 
dwelling and take away a loved mother, a loved 
child, a loved father. Then what is your infidelity 
and atheism? But the words of the Son of God, 
how they comfort then: ‘‘Thy brother shall rise 
again.’’ ‘‘Yes, I know that,” says Martha. He 
had probably taught them of the resurrection. “‘I 
know he will rise again, for he was such a good 
brother. He will rise at the resurrection of the 
just.”” Says the Son of God, ‘‘I am the resurrection 
of the just. I carry the keys with Me. I have the 
keys to death and the grave.’’ And He says, 


414 NO ROOM FOR HIM. 


‘‘Where is Mary? Go call her.’’ I hope there is 
some Mary here that will hear the voice of the Son 
of God call to-night. They ran and told Mary Jesus 
was there. I suppose Mary and Martha talked it 
all over, for Mary came out and said the same 
words: ‘“‘If Thou hadst been here my brother had 
not died.’’ ‘‘Thy brothershall rise again.’’ ‘‘Yes, 
I know he will rise in the resurrection of the just.’’ 
“‘Iam the resurrection of the just. Where have 
you laid him?’’ Look at that company as they 
went along towards the grave-yard. These two sis- 
ters are telling about the last words and last acts of 
Lazarus. Perhaps Lazarus left a loving message 
for Jesus. You know what thatis. When you go 
to see friends who are mourning, how they will 
dwell upon the last words and the last acts of the 
departed one. You see Martha and Mary weeping 
as they went along toward the grave, and the Son 
of God wept with them. He had a heart to weep 
with those who wept, and to mourn with those who 
mourned. He is touched with a feeling of our infir- 
mities. He can comfort us in a time of sorrow. 

He said, ‘‘Where have you laid him?’’ And they 
said, ‘‘Come and see.’’ And they led the way. 
He said to his disciples, ‘‘Take away the stone.’’ 
And again those sisters’ faith wavered, and they 
said: ‘‘Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he has 
been dead four days.’’ They did not know who 
their friend was, and when they rolled away that 
stone, Christ cried with a loud voice to his old 
friend: ‘‘Lazarus, come forth?’’ and Lazarus then 
leaped out of that same sepulcher and came forth. 
Some old divine said it was a good thing He singled 
out Lazarus, for there is such power in the voice of 


NO ROOM FOR HIM. 415 


the Son of God that the dead shall hear his voice 
and if He had not called Lazarus by name all the 
dead in that grave-yard would have come forth. O! 
what blindness and downright folly for a man or 
woman to be ashamed of Jesus Christ! O! make a 
friend of Him who has the keys of death; who has 
the power to raise our dead friends! Your own time 
is coming. The hour is coming when the dead 
shall hear the voice of the Son of God and come 
forth. It seemed to just pain the heart of the Scn 
of God when he was down here, to find so few people 
that wanted Him. We read of his looking toward 
heaven, sighing as he looked toward that world 
where all honored and loved Him, and it seemed as 
if He just sighed for home. As He looked around 
Him, He could see what death was doing. He 
could see what sin was doing. There was death 
behind Him, on the right hand and on the left; yet 
they were so few that wanted Him, so few cared for 
Him. He seemed to look toward that world and 
sigh—just longed for the time that God’s will should 
be done on earth as it is up there in heaven. 

I would like to ask this congregation, did you ever 
have this feeling come over you that no one wanted 
you? IThaditonce. I remember, when I left my 
mother and went off to Boston. I want to say, ifa 
man wants to feel that he is alone in the world, he 
don’t want to go off in the wilderness where he can 
have himself for company, but let him go into some 
of these metropolises or large cities, and let him pass 
down the streets where he can meet thousands and 
have noone know him or recognize him. 

I remember when I went off in that city and tried 
to get work and failed. It seemed as if there was 

24 


416 NO ROOM FOR HIM. 


room for every one else in the world, but there was 
none for me. For about two days I had that awful 
feeling that no one wanted me. I never have had 
it since, and I never want it again. It is an awful 
feeling. It seems to me that must have been the 
feeling of the Son of God when He was down here. 
They did not want Him. He had come down to 
save men and they did not want to be saved. He 
had come to lift men up, and they did not want to 
be lifted up. There was not room for Him in this 
world, and there is not room for Him yet. 

Oh! my friend, is there room for Him in your 
heart? That is the question. There is room for 
pleasure. There is room for lust. There is room 
for passion. ‘There is room for jealousy. There is 
room for the world. There is room for everything but 
the Son of God—no room for Him. When he made 
these hearts of yours and mine, He made room enough 
for Himself, but a usurper has come in and taken 
possession of His place. When He made this world 
He made room enough for you and me and for 
Him, but when He came there was not any room 
for Him. The only place they could make room for 
Him was on the cross, and put Himthere. The 
world to-day is a no greater friend of Jesus Christ 
than it was when He was down here, but if His 
disciples will only make room for Him, how He will 
come and dwell with us, and bless us, and lift us 
up; and He says to us, ‘‘If you will make room for 
me down here, I will make room for you up there. 
If you will honor and confess me down here, I will 
honor you in the courts of heaven, and confess you 
up there in the presence of the Father and the 
angels.” 


NO ROOM FOR HIM. 417 


O! my friends, make room for Him to-night! 
Do not go out of this house until you have made 
room for the Son of God. 

I saw some time ago an account of a lady that 
went in to see her neighbor whom she found weep- 
ing as if her heart would break. She said to her, 
‘‘What is the trouble?’’ ‘‘Well,’’ she said, ‘‘there 
ismy child. It is fourteen years old to-day. For 
fourteen years I have watched over and provided 
for that child. I have not allowed my servants to 
take care of it. During the past fourteen years 
there has not been a night but that I have been up 
some part of the night with that child. I have left 
society and spent my time at home with that child.”’ 
The child had not a mind. ‘“‘But,’’ she says, “‘if 
that child would just recognize me once it would pay 
me for all I have done; but that child don’t know 
me froma stranger.’’ Her heart was just breaking, 
and as Iread I thought: How many of us treat God 
in the same way? 

My friends, God has blessed you with health, and 
a home in a Christian land. He has blessed you 
with a good wife; He has blessed you with chil- 
dren; He has blessed some of you with property, 
and you never have looked up once and recognized 
His loving hand, and said, “‘Thank you, Lord 
Jesus.”’ 

O! this base ingratitude! May God forgive us, 
and may we to-night make room in our hearts for 
the Son of God! Just now when He is knocking at 
the door of your heart, just pull back the bolt and 
say ‘“‘Welcome! Thrice welcome!’’ and see how 
quick he willcomein. Whatishesaying? Listen! 
Hark! Does the heart throb? -That is Christ 


418 NO ROOM FOR HIM. 


knocking! ‘‘Behold, I stand at the door, I will 
come in to him and sup with him, and He with me.” 

O! sinner, just unlock the door of your heart 
to-night. Just throw that door wide open and say 
““Welcome! thrice welcome, Son of God, into this 
heart of mine!’’ and see how quick he will come and 
dwell with you. He will never leave you; He will 
never forsake you. In the time of trouble He will 
be your counselor. In the time of sorrow He will 
be your deliverer. If you want ‘‘a friend that stick- 
eth closer than a brother’’ make room in your heart 
for the Son of God. If you want a friend that will 
help you in the time of temptation and trial, make 
room in your heart for the Son of God. 


CHAPTER XXX. 


THEIR ROCK IS NOT OUR ROCK. 


For their rock is not as our rock, even our enemies them- 
selves being judges. Deut. xxxii. 31. 


This was Moses’ farewell address. He was about 
to leave the children of Israel in the wilderness. 
He had led them up to the borders of the Promised 
Land. For forty long years he had been leading 
them in that wilderness, and now, as they were about 
to go over, Moses takes his farewell; and among 
the good things he said, for he said a great many 
very wise and very good things on that memorable 
occasion, thisis one: ‘‘For their rock is not as our 
rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.’’ 
There was not a man on the face of the earth at 
that time that knew as much about the world, and 
as much about God, as Moses. Therefore he was a 
good judge. He had tasted of the pleasures of the 
world. In the forty years that he was in Egypt he 
probably sampled everything of that day. He 
tasted of the world, of its pleasures. He knew all 
about it. He was brought up in the palace ofa 
king, a prince. Egypt then ruled the world, as it 
were. He had been forty years in Horeb, where 
he had heard the voice of God; where he had been 
taught by God; and for forty years he had been 
serving God. You might say he was God’s tight 

419 


420 THEIR ROCK IS NOT OUR ROCK. 


hand man, leading those bondmen up out of the 
land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage, into 
the land of liberty; and this is his dying address— 
you might say, his farewell address. This is the 
dying testimony of one that could speak with 
authority, and one that could speak intelligently. 
He knew what he was saying, ‘‘Their rock is not 
as our rock, even our enemies themselves being 
judges.”’ 

Now, to-night I want to take up the atheist, the 
deist, the pantheist, and the infidel; and I want to 
show, if I can, and I think it is not a very difficult 
thing to show, that their way is not as our way. 

I know there is a good deal of dispute now about 
the definition of these words. So, to avoid any 
trouble, instead of going to the Bible I went to Web- 
ster’s dictionary, and I have got the meaning. I 
suppose you will give in, most of you, that Webster 
is wiser than yourselves. There are a few men that 
are a little wiser than Webster, for infidelity is gen- 
erally very conceited. One of the worst things 
about infidelity is the conceit. You seldom meet 
an infidel that is not wiser in his own estimation 
than the God who created him, and he wants to teach 
God instead of letting God teach him. But to those 
that are willing to bow to Webster we will refer 
these definitions of these words. 

An atheist is ‘cone who disbelieves or denies the 
existence of God.’’ I am thankful to say that they 
are very scarce. You meet them now and then. 
I am sorry to say that you will occasionally meet a 
young man that will tell you that he is an atheist. 
He believes there is no God; he believes that there 


THEIR ROCK IS NOT OUR ROCK. 421 


is no hereafter; that when he dies, that is the end 
—that ends all. 

I don’t know of anything that is darker; I don’t 
know of anything that is colder, bleaker, than 
that doctrine; for, of course, an atheist has feelings 
like the restofus. If he is a father, he has love for 
his children. Here is a boy that has gone astray; he 
has been taken captive by Satan; he has become a 
victim to strong drink, we will say, and strong 
drink has got the mastery; and you can see that boy 
as he is going down toa drunkard’s grave. He says 
to that father that believes there is no God, and no 
hereafter, ‘‘Father, is there no deliverance for me? 
Is there no way that I can become a free man?’ 
““Yes,’’ says the atheist, “‘assert your manhood. 
Resolve that you will never drink any more.’’ ‘‘Ah, 
but, father, I have done that a thousand times, and 
I can’t keep those resolutions. The tempter is too 
strong forme. My appetite is stronger than my will 
power, father? Is there no God that created me 
that can help me?’’ ‘‘No, my son, no; nothing 
outside yourself.’’ ‘‘And if I die in this condition, 
what is going to become of me?’’ ‘Oh, that will be 
the last of you.’’ ‘‘And shall we never meet again 
in the universe of God?’’ ‘‘No, never.’’ Pretty 
dark, isn’t it? And the atheist sees that boy go 
down to a drunkard’s grave. There is no arm to 
deliver, no eye to pity. There is no help. 

Look again. He has got a beautiful little child. 
It has lived long enough to twine itself around that 
father’s heart, and the cold, icy hand of death is 
feeling for the chords of life, and that little flower 
is going to be plucked. Youcan see that little child 
wasting away upon a bed of pain and sickness. The 


422 THEIR ROCK IS NOT OUR ROCK. 


child calls the father to its bedside and says, 
‘Father, is there no hereafter?’’ ‘*No, my child.’’ 
“‘Shall we never meet again?’’ ‘‘No, my child.”’ 
‘When I die, is that the last of me?’ ‘‘Yes, my 
child.’’ Pretty dark, isn’t it? That atheist goes 
and lays away that child without one ray of hope— 
without one star to relieve the midnight darkness 
and gloom. 

A prominent infidel of this country stood at the 
grave of amember of his family. He is an orator 
—an eloquent man; and he said he committed him 
back to the winds and the waves and the elements; 
it was the last they would ever see of him. Pretty 
dark, isn’t it? 

And yet there are some men that want to go over 
to atheism. They want to believe that there is no 
God. Icain not for the life of me see where you 
get any comfort init. I turn away from it, and I 
say from the very depths of my heart, ‘* Their rock 
is not as our rock.’’ I thank God I have got a bet- 
ter foundation than that; I thank God I have got a 
better hope than that. If my boy is led astray, I 
can preach to him Jesus Christ, and I can tell him 
that God Almighty has got power to deliver him 
from sin, and from its mighty power; and if God 
should take my child from me, I can say to that dear 
child, ‘‘I will meet you on the glorious morning of 
the resurrection. It won’t be long. We may be 
separated for a little while, but the night will soon 
pass, and the great morning of the world will dawn 
uponus.’’ Yes, “their roek is not as our rock, even 
our enemies themselves being judges.”’ 

But I must pass on. That is the definition of an 
atheist—one that believes there is no God. I want 


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THEIR ROCK IS NOT OUR ROCK. 425 


to say if there were many atheists in this country 
we would have a great many more suicides than we 
have. These men that have got tired of life, if they 
thought that death ended all, they would quickly 
put themselves out of the way, and you could not 
blame them forit. But I think there is something 
down in man’s heart that tells him there is a here- 
after; that there is not only a God, but there isa 
judgment to come. 

Now a deist. A deist is one that believes in one 
God only. Hedenies Christ andrevelation. Deism 
is not much better, I think, than atheism, for I 
never .yet knew a deist that knew anything about 
his God. He believes there is a God, and that is all 
you can get out of him. 

Deists live on their doubts. They live on what 
they do not believe—on negatives. You meet a 
deist and he would tell you, ‘“‘I don’t believe this, 
and I don’t believe that, and that,’’ and he is all the 
time telling you what he don’t believe. You sel- 
dom, if ever, find a deist who will tell you what he 
does believe, because he knows nothing about his 
God. Ifaimandeniesrevelation, how is he to know 
anything about God? How are we to know our God 
if we are only deists, and just close that book, and 
not believe in the book? Is he a God of mercy? 
We know nothing about it. Is he a God of truth, 
and equity, and justice? We know nothing about it. 
How are we to know anything about God, if we cast 
away the Bible, and say we don’t believe in revela- 
tion; that we don’t believe that Jesus Christ came 
down here to declare His Father, and believe that 
that book is not written by inspiration, and doubt 
that blessed word of God? I would like to have a 


426 THEIR ROCK IS NOT OUR ROCK. 


deist come forward and declare to us his God—and 
tell us who and what he is. 

The Pantheist. Let us see what Webster's defi- 
nition of a pantheist is. He believes that the uni- 
verse is God. He believes that God is in the wind, 
God is in the water, God is in the trees, and all the 
God we know anything about is the god we see 
about us. A pantheist will say, ‘‘Why, yes, I be- 
lieve in God. YouareGod and Iam God. We are 
all Gods.’’ That is their idea—that God is in every- 
thing. I strike that board and strike the pantheist’s 
god, because that is as much a god as the god he 
knows. Istamp upon the floor, and I stamp the 
pantheist's god. That isall he knows. God isin 
everything; God is everywhere; God is nowhere; 
that is the summing up of pantheism. Now, you 
will find a great many of these pantheists that will 
tell you they believe more in God than we do, be- 
’ cause they believe God is in everything all around. 

But when you ask a deist or a pantheist if his God 
answers prayer, he will tell you no. ‘‘Does he hear 
the cry of distress?’’ ‘‘No.’’ ‘Does he hear the 
cry of the humble?’ He will tell you that the Lord 
of the universe and the God of the universe has just 
made this world, and has wound it up as a clock, 
and it is going to run; that His laws are fixed; that 
you need not pray; you can’t change God’s mind; 
that he never answers prayer. If your child has 
gone astray, you can’t pray to Him, because He has 
no mercy. There is no mercy but in the wind, and 
you may as well go out and pray to the thunder, to 
a storm, or a shower, to the moon, the sun, the stars, 
because God is everything and everywhere, and 
yet is nowhere, They don’t believe in the person- 


THEIR ROCK IS NOT OUR ROCK. 427 


ality of God. You may just take pantheism, deism 
and atheism, put them all together, and there is not 
much difference. I would as soon be the one as the 
other, because they are in midnight darkness and 
gloom. They know nothing about the God of love 
and the God of the Bible. 

But now we come, perhaps, to the most difficult 
class, because I think that there are a great many © 
infidels, and don’t like that name. I suppose that 
saying they were infidels has offended quite a num- 
ber of Cleveland people. They stand up and deny 
it. But when you come to put the question right to 
them according to Webster’s definition of infidelity, 
they are nothing but infidels. Now, an infidel is 
one that does not believe in the inspiration of the 
Scriptures. 

I am sorry to say that we have got to-day a good 
many infidels. The first step towards atheism is 
infidelity. The first step towards pantheism is infi- 
delity. The first step towards deism is infidelity. 

The moment you can break down that word in 
one place and make out that it is not true, then, of 
course, the whole word goes. Now, you ask an in- 
fidel if he really believes in the Bible, and he says, 

“Well, I believe part of it. I believe all that cor- 
responds with my reason, but I don’t believe any- 
thing supernatural. Idon’t believe anything I 
can’t reason out.’’ ‘ 

Now, if a man takes that ground he might as 
well throw away the whole Bible and go over to 
atheism at one leap. He need not be weeks and 
months going, because that is where it is going to 
bring him. If you take out of that book all that is 
supernatural, you might as well take out the whole 


428 THEIR ROCK IS NOT OUR ROCK. 


of it. From beginning to end it is a supernatural 
book. Look into Genesis. You ask an infidel if he 
believes in the flood. No, sir; nothe. Then throw 
out Genesis; because, if the man who wrote Gene- 
sis put in one lie, why is not the whole of it a lie? 
If he did he must have known it was a fraud when 
he wrote it, so that condemns Genesis. You ask a 
man if he believes the story of the Red Sea—about 
bringing the children of Israel through the Red Sea. 
Not he. That is contrary to reason, contrary to 
man’s intellect. Out goes Exodus. That throws 
out the decalogue—throws out the commandments. 
It all goestogether. If the man who wrote Exodus 
told a lie in the beginning of Exodus and that the 
children never went through the Red Sea, then away 
goes the whole book. 

Then take up Leviticus. It is said in Leviticus 
if we will do so and so He will come down and walk 
with us, would be among his people, and the shout 
of the king is heard in the camp. ‘‘Do you believe 
that?’’ ‘‘No, sir,’’ the infidel says, ‘‘I don’t believe 
anything of that kind.’’ Out goes Leviticus. 
Throw it all out. 

Do you believe God told Moses to make a brazen 
serpent, and that all the bitten Israelites that 
looked upon it shall live? The skeptic turns up his 
nose and says with a good deal of contempt, “‘No, 
you don’t think I am fool enough to believe that?”’ 
Out goes the whole book of Numbers; throw it out 
because if the man that wrote that book, put that 
lie in, the whole of itis alie. You just prove that 
I tell a wilful lie here to-night and my whole ser- 
mon is gone. You go into court and testify to a lie 
and let it be proven that you have told a wilful lie, 


THEIR ROCK IS NOT OUR ROCK. 429 


(and untrue in one thing untrue in all),out goes your 
testimony. The jury won’t takeit. Now, if the 
man that wrote the book of Numbers put down that 
lie—if he never did make a brazen serpent for the 
children of Israel, then the whole book of Numbers 
is gone. Throw it out. Then we come to Deutero- 
nomy. Do you believe Moses went up into the 
mountain and his natural force was not abated, his 
eye had not grown dim, and he died there and God 
buried him; God kissed away his soul, as some one 
has said? The infidel says, ‘‘I don’t believe one word 
of it; that is supernatural; that is against reason. 
Then throw out the whole book of Deuteronomy. 
There goes the first five books of Moses. 

Then go into Joshua. ‘‘Do you believe Joshua 
took Jericho by going around Jericho blowing rams’ 
horns?’’ ‘Don’t believe a word of it.’’ Tear it to 
pieces. Throwit away. Out it goes. If the writer 
of that book would tell a lie like that at the begin- 
ning of the book he lied all through it—why not? 
That is what an infidel is—one who does not believe 
in supernatural things. 

‘“*Do you believe that Samson took the jaw-bone 
of an ass and slew athousand men?’’ ‘‘No, I don’t 
believe it.”’ Out goes the book. Because from the 
beginning of Judges to the end it is all supernatu- 
ral. 

*“Do you believe God called Samuel when he was 
a little boy—that God called him?’’ ‘‘Why, no,’’ 
says the infidel,*“‘I don’t believe any thing that is 
contrary to my reason. I don't believe any thing 
supernatural.’’ Out goes the two books of Sam- 
uel. 

“Do you believe that David went out and met 


430 THEIR ROCK IS NOT OUR ROCK. 


Goliath and slew him?’’ ‘‘No, I don’t believe it.’’ 
Out goes the two books of Kings. And so I can go 
on through the whole Bible. Take out the super- 
natural in it and you have to throw away the whole 
Bible. You can’t touch Jesus Christ from His birth 
until He went up into glory, but what He was 
supernatural. The work that is going on now is 
supernatural. Things are happening every day that 
are supernatural. Every man that is born of the 
Holy Ghost, born of God—it is supernatural. Yet 
an infidel will stand right up and tell you to-day 
that he will not believe a thing in that book that 
don't correspond to his reason; therefore the infidels 
are just tearing the Bible all to pieces. That is 
where we are drifting to. ‘*Their rock is not as our 
rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.”’ 
Now, I would like to ask the infidels what earthly 
motive could the early Christians have had in writ- 
ing that book? What motive could Jesus Christ 
have had in coming down here and living such a 
life ashe led? Some of you accuse us of working 
for gain. You say that we are after your money 
and that we don't care anything about your soul. 
You cannot accuse our Master of that, can you? He 
didn't carry off much money, did He? His cradle 
was a borrowed one. The only time that He rode 
into Jerusalem, that we have recorded, He rode in on 
acolt, the foalofanass. It would be a strange sight 
tosee him coming into Cleveland inthat way. You 
would not own Him. And He did not own this 
beast. It was a borrowed beast. It wasa borrowed 
guest chamber in which he instituted his supper. 
It was a borrowed grave in which they laid Him. 
He that was rich became poor for our sakes. What 


THEIR ROCK IS NOT OUR ROCK. 431 


motive could He have had in coming down here if 
He had not been true and real—if he had been an 
imposter, a hypocrite, coming down here and teach- 
ing us a falsehood? If Jesus Christ was not God 
manifest in the flesh, he was the greatest imposter 
that ever came into this world, and every Christian 
throughout Christendom to-day, is guilty of idolatry, 
of breaking the first commandment, ‘‘Thou shalt 
have no other god before Me.’’ He comes and says 
unto the world, ‘‘Come unto Me and I will give you 
rest.’’ Elijah never said that; Moses never said 
that; no man that ever trod this earth dared to_have 
said it; andif Jesus Christ had not been divine as well 
as human, it would have been blasphemy, and the 
Jews ought to have put him to death. They hada 
right by the Jewish law to put Him to death. He 
an impostor! He a deceiver! Heafraud! Away 
with such doctrine! And yet people will stand right 
up here in this community and tell you it is alla 
fiction about his conception by the Holy Ghost, and 
at the same time they will stand right up and say 
they are Christians. They don't like that word 
infidel. They say that they are no infidels. But, 
ah, my friends, if we break down the testimony of 
Jesus Christ, and make him outa fraud and deceiver, 
it all goes. 

Now, when people tell me that that book is not to 
be relied upon, I tell them that I will throw it away 
when they will bring mea betterone. I amready to 
throw it away to-night if you will bring me a better 
one. But where is there any book to be compared 
withit? Bring it on will you? When you bring on a 
better man than Jesus Christ I will follow him. 
But don’t ask me to follow these skeptics and infi- 


432 THEIR ROCK IS NOT OUR ROCK. 


‘icls down here who are trying to tear down the 
works of Jesus Christ when they have no better to 
leave in their place. 

Now Jesus Christ was without spot or blemish. 
You can find no fault with Him orin Him. We 
don't want to follow any one else until we can find 
a better man. If these men that are scoffing and 
sneering at Christ will bring on a better man we 
will follow him. If they will bring on a better book 
we will take it. But until they do, let us cling to 
the Bible, and defend it and stand by it, and let us 
stand by Jesus Christ and let us defend Him. 

Infidelity takes everything away from us and gives 
us nothing in return. When Lord Chesterfield went 
to Paris he was invited out to dine with Voltaire, 
the leading infidel of that day. Lord Chesterfield 
wasaChristianman. A lady at the table, when they 
were at dinner, said: ‘‘Lord Chesterfield, I am told 
that you have in your English Parliament five or six 
hundred of the leading men of thought in the 
nation.’’ Well, he said he believed that was so. 
She said, ‘‘then why is it that those wise men toler- 
ate Christianity?’ Well, he said he supposed 
because they could not get anything better to take 
its place. 

Do you ever stop to think what you would put in 
the place of Christianity? It is easy enough to tear 
down, or at least try to tear down. There are some 
people that spend all their lives in trying to tear 
down things that are good, but they give us nothing 
in the place of them. Now the trouble with infidelity 
is it gives us nothing in the place of what we have 
got. The Bible holds out a hope to man. It holds 
out something that is beyond this life, and gives him_ 


THEIR ROCK IS NOT OUR ROCK. 433 


hope. Infidelity giveshim no hope. It tears down 
all the hope he has got. He has got nothing to 
build on. If this book fails, what have we got? 
Now, just think a moment. Take the Bible away 
from us, and what have got? I would like to say to 
the people here to-night, if you step into a church 
—for I am sorry to say some of these infidels have 
got into the pulpit—if you step into a church and 
hear a man talking about Jesus Christ not being 
divine, if you take my advice, you will get out of 
that church as quick as you can-get out. But you 
say, ‘‘My father and mother belong to that church.’’ 
Suppose they do. You get out, as Lot got out of 
Sodom. Make haste. You think a man who would 
sell you poison and kill your children is a horrid 
man; but I tell you aman who would plant infidelity 
in the mind of my child is worse than a man who gives 
it poison—to have their young minds poisoned and 
infidelity taught them under the garb of Christ and 
Christianity; and yet there are some men who pro- 
fess to be friends of that book who are all the time 
trying to tear it to pieces, and make out that it is 
not written by inspiration—that it is not from God, 
and that it cannot speak with authority. 

Now, to show that their rock is not as our rock, 
our enemies themselves being judges, I want to tell 
you a thing that happened some time ago. I was 
in the room with a man, and he said he wanted to 
have a talk with me, ‘“‘but,’’ he says, ‘‘I wish you 
would let that man go out.’’ ‘‘O!’’ I said, ‘‘he is 
here to take care of the things.’”” We had some of 
our things in the cloak-room back of the platform, 
and he was there so that no thief should come in 
and steal what we had. And this man said, ‘‘I 


434 THEIR ROCK IS NOT OUR ROCK, 


would like to have him go out.”’ ‘‘Well,’’ I said, 
‘“*he belongs here. I will ask him to go out if you 
insist upon it, but,’’ says I, “‘I will talk at this end 
of the room.’’ ‘‘Well,’’ he said, ‘‘I would like to 
have him go out.’’ I spoke to the man and asked 
him to leave the room, and he hadn’t more than 
got out before he opened his lips, and such a tirade 
against Christianity! I said to him, ‘‘My friend, 
why did you want that man to go out?’’’ ‘*Well,” 
he said, ‘‘I thought it might hurt him.’’ I said, ‘If 
it is good for you why is it not good for him?’’ Well, 
he said he did not like to have his children know his 
views. He said his wife was a Christian and he 
wanted his children brought up differently. ‘‘Their 
rock is not as our rock, our enemies themselves being 
judges.’’ I want my children to believe as I believe. 
I want them to be taught to live and fear and honor 
God. If these infidels think infidelity is good for 
them, why is it they don’t want it taught to their 
children, why is it, that so many infidels want their 
children to be taught the Lord's prayer? 

Very often when I have been in an infidel’s house 
he has wanted his wife and children to leave the 
room, and then he has gone on and talked his infi- 
delity. ‘‘Their rock is not as our rock, our enemies 
themselves being judges.’’ That proves it. 

A man ordered his servant out of his dining room, 
and after his servant went out he began to talk his 
atheism to a Christian man that wasthere. The ~ 
Christian man said to him. ‘*Why did you order out 
your servant?’’ ‘‘Well,’’ said he, ‘‘I’m afraid if he 
held my views he might cut my throat some time, 
for my money ” 

You laugh at it, but if there is no God, why not? 


THEIR ROCK IS NOT OUR ROCK. 435 


If there is no hereafter, why not? If this country 
is as bad as it is with all the religion we have, what 
would it be without it? Let this country go over 
to infidelity, what would become of the nation? It 
was not a great many years ago that, in a conven- 
tion at Lyons, France, they voted that the Bible 
was a fiction, that it was not true, and that there 
was no God; that there was no hereafter; that death 
was an eteral sleep; and it was not very long before 
blood flowed very freely in France. And you let 
atheism, and pantheism, and deism, and infidelity go 
stalking through this land, and life and property 
won't be safe. You know it very well. 

Lord Lyttleton and Gilbert West were going to 
expose the fraud of Christianity. One was going to 
take up the resurrection and expose that. The 
other was going to take up Saul’s conversion and 
expose that. And they went about it—went to 
studying up those two facts. The result was they 
were both converted. The testimony was perfectly 
overwhelming. Ifaman will look at the testimony, 
I can’t see for the life of me how he can doubt these 
are facts. What did Paul have to gain by his con- 
version? Would you call such a man as Paula fraud? 
What did he give up for the gospel’s sake? Repu- 
tation, position, standing—every thing he had. 

What did he get in return? Hunger, persecution, 
prison, stocks, stripes, and death. He died the 
death of acommon criminal. He died at Rome as 
a poor and miserable outcast in the sight of the | 
world. What earthly motive could he have had, if 
these things are not true? Why, we have all the 
proof that any man could ask for, that Jesus Christ 
rose from the dead. He was seen ten different 


436 THEIR ROCK IS NOT OUR ROCK. 


times, and was here among us forty days, and then 
He was seen by the holiest and best men on earth 
at that time ascend and go upinto heaven. They 
went and looked into the sepulcher and found it was 
empty. There was no doubt about His body coming 
out of the grave. Some men say they believe in 
Christianity, but they don’t believe Christ's body 
came up. Do you think they could have stolen that 
body and palmed that fraud off on the world for 
these eighteen hundred years? Do you think those 
keen Jews of Jerusalem would never have found out 
the fraud and deception? Away with such a delu- 
sion. Christ rose; He burst asunder the bands of 
death. Hehas come out of the sepulcher and passed 
into the heavens and taken His seat at the right 
hand of God. We don’t worship a dead Savior. 
Our Christ lives. He is on the throne to-night. 
Let us look up: for the time of our redemption is 
nigh. Let us gird up our loins afresh. Let us 
buckle on the whole armor and fight for Christ. 
Let us hold tothe faith. Let us not be influenced 
by the infidelity around us, but let it drive us to the 
Bible. Let us cling to this good old book. It will 
be darker than midnight ere long if we let our con- 
fidence go in that book. I saw an account some 
time ago of an infidel who was dying. So many 
infidels recant when they die. Did you ever hear of 
a Christian recanting? I neverdid. Did you ever 
hear of a Christian dying that was sorry that he had 
served the Lord Jesus Christ? I never did. I have 
heard of a good many that regretted that they had 
not served Him a good deal better than they had; 
that they had not lived more like Him. The infidel 
friends of this infidel gathered around him. They 


THEIR ROCK IS NOT OUR ROCK. 437 


were afraid he was going to recant, and if he did 
the Christians would make capital out of it. They 
gathered around him and said, “Hold on, hold on 
to your principles; don’t give up now.”” The poor 
dying man said, ‘‘What have I got to hold on to?”’ 
You answer the question, will you? What has an 
infidel got to hold on to? 

Some time ago I was drawing a contrast between 
the end of that talented man, Lord Byron, and Paul. 
Byron died at the early age of thirty-six. The time 
allotted to man is three score years and ten. 

A fast life—a life of dissipation carried him off 

early. These are about the last lines he penned: 


My days are in the yellow leaf, 

The flower and the fruit of life are gone; 
The worm, the canker, and the grave 

Are mine alone.” 


That is all he had at the close of life. But look 
at Paul’s farewell. He writes to Timothy: ‘‘I have 
fought the good fight. I have kept the faith; 
henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of 
righteousness.’’ There is a good deal of difference 
between the death of a skeptic and an infidel, and 
the death of the righteous. ‘*Their rock is not as 
our rock, they themselves being judges.’’ - How 
often you have heard men say, “‘I wish I could be- 
lieve as you do.’’ What do they want to believe as 
we do for, if they are satisfied with their rock? ‘“‘I 
wish I had your hope.’’ What do you want our 
hope for if you are satisfied with your rock? ‘‘Oh, 
Iwish I had the assurance you have.’’ What do 
you want our assurance for if you are satisfied with 
your rock? The factis, “their rockis not as our 


438 THEIR ROCK IS NOT OUR ROCK. 


rock, our enemies being judges.’’ We will bring 
them in as witnesses and let them testify. Let us, 
my friends, hold on to the Word of God. When 
these skeptics and infidels talk against the book, let 
us love it all the more. Letit drive us to the Word. 

Let us say we will give up life rather than 
that book. We will hold onto that, let it cost us 
what it will. The world may call us fanatics and 
fools, and all that, but they cannot give us any 
worse name than they gave the Master. They called 
him Beelzebub, the Prince of Devils, and we can 
afford to be called fools for Christ’s sake for a little 
while, and by and by we will be called home, and, 
if we will hold right on, the end will be glorious. 

A soldier, during the war, got up in one of our 
meetings in Chicago. He had just come from the 
battle of Perryville. He said his brother came 
home one day and said he had enlisted. He went 
down to the recruiting office and put his name next 
to his brother’s; there was no name between them;. 
he said they had never been separated one day in 
their lives, and he said he did not mean to have his 
brother go into the army without him. He said 
they went into the army, and they went into a good 
many battles together. The terrible battle of Perry- 
ville came on. About ro o’clock in the morning 
his brother was mortally wounded. A minie ball 
passed through his lungs. He fell by his side, put 
his knapsack under the head of his dying brother, 
pillowed his head and made him as comfortable as 
he could, bent over and kissed him, and started 
“away, The dying man says, ‘‘Charlie, come back 
here. Let me kiss you upon your lips.” He came 
back, and his brother kissed him on the lips and 


THEIR ROCK IS NOT OUR ROCK. 439 


said, ‘‘There, take that home to my dear mother, 
and tell her that I died praying for her.’’ And he 
said as he turned away, and his brother was wal- 
lowing in his blood, and the battle was raging all 
around him, he heard him say, ‘‘This is glorious.’’ 
He turned around and went back, and said, ‘‘My 
brother, what is glorious?’ ‘‘Oh,’’ he said, ‘‘it is 
glorious todie looking up. I see Christ in heaven.”’ 

It is glorious to die looking up. But if we die 
looking up, we have got to live looking up. We 
have got to live trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. 
Oh, in this dark day of infidelity, when it is coming 
up all around, let us hold onto the glorious old Bible, 
and to the blessed teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 





TEKEL. 
Tekel. Daniel v. 25. 


I want to have you get the text to-night. It is 
so short [ am quite sure you that have short memo- 
ries can carry it away with you, if you will listen to 
it; andif some one asks you after the meeting is 
over, I hope you will be able to give my text and 
the meaning of it. 

In this short chapter of thirty-one verses we get 
all we know about Belshazzar. His history was 
very brief. We are told that he had a feast for his 
lords; he had a thousand of his noblemen, his lords, 
his mighty men, gathered there at Babylon. How 
long that feast lasted we are not told. Sometimes 
those Eastern feasts used to last for six months. 
We are told that this young king was praising the 
gods of gold, of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood and 
of stone; and all at once silence reigns in that ban- 
queting hall. The king had sent out into the 
heathen temple, and had had the golden vessels 
that had been taken by his grandfather Nebuchad- 
nezzar, that had been brought down from Jerusa- 
lem, brought into that impious feast, and while they 
were rioting and drinking and carousing, judgment 
came suddenly and unexpectedly. And I think if 
you will read the Word of God carefully, you will 

440 


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TEKEL. 445 


find that judgment always comes suddenly and un- 
expectedly. While that feast is going on and all 
is merry, over on the wall, over the golden candle- 
sticks, is seen a hand, and there is a finger writing 
the doom of that king. He sends for the wise men 
of Babylon to come in and read that writing. He 
offers the man that can read the writing shall be 
clothed in fine linen andin purple; he shall have 
a golden chain around his neck, and shall be made 
the third ruler in the realm. Those wise men tried 
to read it, but they were not acquainted with God’s 
handwriting. Thatis the reason these skeptics and 
infidels don’t understand the Bible—they don’t know 
God’s handwriting. With all the wisdom of the 
Chaldeans they could not make out that handwrit- 
ing. They failed—utterly failed. The king and 
all his lords were astounded. They never had seen 
it on that fashion before. It was a strange hand- 
writing. The Queen comes in, and she tells the 
Monarch that there is a man in his kingdom—he has 
not been heard of for fifteen years; where he has 
been we are not told; but she tells Belshazzar that 
when Nebuchadnezzar reigned and the wise men 
failed to tell him his dream, and the interpretation, 
there was a man by the name of Daniel that could 
tell the king his dream, and the interpretation, and 
if Belshazzar would send for this prophet he might 
be able to read that handwriting on the wall. Dan- 
iel is sent for and the king says to him, “‘If you read 
that handwriting and tell me what it is, I will give 
you great gifts, and I will make you the third ruler 
in the realm.’’ When that prophet looks up there 
you can imagine how silence reigns through that 


audience. Everyeyeis upon him. The king looks 
25 


444 TEKEL. 


at him, and as he makes this offer to the prophet, 
the prophet says, ‘‘Let your gifts be to others, but I 
will read to you the handwriting.’’ He knew his 
God’s writing. It was very familiar to him, and 
without any difficulty he can read, ‘‘Mene, mene: 
tekel, upharsin.’’ ‘‘What does it mean?’’ cries 
the king. ‘‘Mene, mene: Thy kingdom is num- 
bered and finished. Tekel: Thou art weighed in 
the balances, and art found wanting. Upharsin: 
Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes 
and Persians.’’ And that night Belshazzar’s blood 
flowed with the wine in his banquet hall. That 
very night they could hear Cyrus coming with his 
army up through the streetsof Babylon. He turned 
the Euphrates out of its channel and brought his 
army under the walls of the city, and that very 
night Belshazzar’s army was defeated, the men 
around the royal palace were driven back, Belshaz- 
zar was slain, and Darius took the throne. 

But, it is not my object to-night to talk about 
that king that reigned twenty-five hundred years 
ago. I don’t want totake you back that far. I 
want to get down to Cleveland if I can. I 
want to get into this audience to-night, and I want 
to ask every man and woman in this assembly, if 
you should be summoned into eternity at this hour, 
or at the midnight hour, what should be said? 
‘‘Thou art weighed in the balances’ and art found 
wanting.’”’ 

The other night I preached from the text, “‘There 
is no difference,’’ and I tried to measure men by 
the law. To-night I propose to weigh them by the 
law. We find here this illustration of the balances 
used by God himself. Tekel means, ‘‘Thou art 


TEKEL. 445 


weighed in the balances and art found wanting.”’ 
Let us imagine there were scales let down into this 
building—not of our making—God is going to 
weigh us; we are not going to weigh ourselves. 
The great trouble with men is they are trying to 
weigh themselves all the while, and they are mak- 
ing balances of theirown. When we are weighed 
we are to be weighed in God’s balances—not man’s. 
The God who created us is going to weigh us. Let 
us imaine that the scales are fastened by a golden 
‘chain to the throne of God, who sits yonder in the 
heavens—a God of equity, a God of justice; and 
those balances come down to-night into this build- 
ing, and here they are right before us, and every 
man, woman, and child in this assembly has to be 
weighed. Now, the question is, are you ready to 
be weighed? A man begins to look around to his 
neighbors and other people, and says, ‘“‘Yes, Iam 
ready to be weighed. I am as good as the aver- 
age.”’ But that is not the way to look atit. What 
we want is to look at the law. We are to be 
weighed by the law of God. The God that created 
.us has given us a law, and among all the skeptics 
and infidels that I have met, I have not found any 
that complained of that law. The trouble is not 
with the law. The trouble is with ourselves. 

Now, I have to-night some weights. You know 
when you go into astore to buy goods they take 
weights and weigh out your goods. Now, I have ten 
weights. I am going to put them in the balances, 
and I want this audience to come up and get in. 
As I put the weights in on one side, you come up 
and get inon the other side and see if you are ready 
to be weighed by the law of God. 


446 TEKEL. 


We will now put in the first weight, *‘Thou shalt 
have no other gods before me.’’ People who live 
in America think there is no such thing as idolatry. 
They think they have to go off into China, Japan or 
some heathen country to find idols. Don't flatter 
yourselves. We have idolsin America. You have 
not got to go far from Cleveland to findthem. You 
will find a thousand idolaters, I was going to say, 
where you will find one true Christian that worships 
the God of the Bible. Anything that a man thinks 
more of than he does of God is hisidol. A man 
may make an idol of his wealth. A man may make 
an idol of his wife or children; a man may make 
an idol of himself; a good many do that. They 
think more of themselves than of anything else in 
the wide world. They worship themselves. They 
revere themselves. They honor themselves. Self 
is at the bottom and top of every thing they do. 
Then there are a good many that worship the god 
of pleasure. Look at your young men to-day and 
your young ladies that bow down to the god of pleas- 
ure. ‘‘Give me a night in the ball-room and you 
may have heaven with all its glories. What dol 
care? Give mea night that will satisfy me in this 
eworld and I care nothing about the world to come.”’ 
There are a good many gods. It would take all 
night to enumerate the gods you have got here in 
Cleveland. There are a good many that bow down 
to that god of gold, that golden calf we read of in 
Aaron’s day. ‘‘Give me money”’ is the cry of the 
world. ‘‘You-may have the Bible with all its offers 
of mercy and heaven. You may have everything 
else if you will only give me money, and give mea 
nice house up here on the avenue and a good turn- 


TEKEL. 447 


out and all the money I want. That is all I ask 
for. I will just be willing to trample the Bible and 
all its commandments and all its offers of mercy 
under my feet. That is my god.’’ ‘*Thou shalt 
have no other gods before me.”’ 

Now what is your god to-night? What do you 
think most of to-night? Oh, that the Spirit of God 
may wake us up to-night. If we are trusting any 
idol, if we have some idol in our heart, may God 
tear it from us, because God says, ‘‘Thou shalt have 
no other gods before Me.’’ ‘The sin of idolatry is 
one of the worst of sins. In that Book there is 
more said against idolatry, perhaps, than any other 
sin. God will have the first place or none. Yet 
there are a great many men trying to give God the 
second place. They say, “‘Business has got to be 
attended to, I have got to attend to business, and if 
I have a little time after attending to business, I 
will attend to my soul’s wants.’’ Instead of giving 
the soul the first place they give the body and this 
life the first place. Wetakea good deal better care 
of our bodies than we do of our souls. You know 
that very well. Most people think a great deal 
more of this life than of the life to come. They 
think a great deal more of the gods around them 
than of the God of the Bible and the God of heaven. 

The next weight is very much likeit We will 
put that weight right in the balances, “‘Thou shalt 
not bow down thyself to any graven image or any 
likeness of anything that isin heaven above or that 
is in the earth beneath, or that isin the water under 
the earth.” _ “‘Thou shalt not bow down to any 
image.’’ I am not to even worship any cross or 
crucifix. Jam not to bow down to anything but the 


448 TEKEL. 


God of heaven. Iam not to worship_,any pictures, 
even if they are pictures of Jesus Christ—not any 
graven image. I think it is a great mistake that 
artists try to make pictures of the God of heaven 
andearth. It is a fearful thing. We are not to 
make any graven image of anything and then bow 
down to it. : 

But Imust passonrapidly. ‘‘Thou shalt not take 
the name of the Lord thy Godin vain.’’ Blasphem- 
ers come on now and be weighed. We will put that 
in thé balances. You step in and see how quick 
you will go up — how quick the balance will 
kick the beam. If every blasphemer in this house 
was to be weighed to-night. what would become of 
his soul? 

‘“‘Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy 
God in vain.’’ It is astonishing to hear men blas- 
pheme and curse God, and when you talk to them 
they say, ‘‘I don’t mean anything by it.’’ Well, 
God means a good deal when He says He “‘will not 
hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.”’ 

Do you know that profanity is just man’s showing 
his enmity to God? If God hadn’t told man not to 
swear, I don’t think he would have thought of it, 
but just because God has said, ‘°Thou shalt not 
swear,’’ he wants to show his contempt of God by 
trampling His commandment under foot and spurn- 
ing the grace of God. They say they can’t help it. 
Yet these very men, when their mother is around, 
seldom if ever swear. ‘That shows they have more 
respect for their mother than they have for the God 
of heaven. If the wife happens to be around, or 
the children very often, they will not swear. Yet 
they will curse God, and swear to God’s face—chal-. 


TEKEL. 449 


lenge God, as it were, to do his worst, and blas- 
pheme. Yet when you talk to them about it they 
say, “‘Oh, well, Ican’t helpit.’’ It is false. Man 
may not of his own strength be able to turn from 
that sin, but God will give him grace. If aman has 
a new heart, he will have no desire to swear. 

If a man is born of God he will not want to take 
God’s name in vain. Let the blasphemers in this 
house to-night remember that God is not going to 
“hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.”’ 
If every blasphemer in this assembly should be cut 
down to-night with cursing and blasphemy upon his 
conscience and upon his heart, what would become 
of his soul? Itis a fearful thing. You look upon a 
thief as a horrid monster, many of you, and think 
he is a curse to the community, but ist not as bad 
to break God’s laws as to break the laws of the 
state? You elect men to your legislature to make 
laws for you, and you think the laws which they 
make ought to be revered and honored more than 
the laws of high heaven. Here is a law from 
heaven, and that law says ‘“‘thou shalt not take the 


name of the Lord thy God in vain.’’ Man shows 
contempt for God and his laws and goes on blas- 
pheming. 


The next weight we will put in the balances is, 
“‘Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” As 
it looks to me, we are drifting into a dark age. We 
thought when we had slavery in this country that it 
was a great curse to the land; but we have some- 
thing worse to-day. If this nation gives up its Sab- 
bath, we are not going to see blood flow in a few 
Southern States, but it will not be long before it will 
flow in all our cities. It won’t be long before we 


450 TEKEL. 


will see a darker day than this nation has ever seen. 
No republic can exist without righteousness. If 
men are going to violate the law of God; if you 
teach men to break God’s law, how long will it be 
before they will take the laws of man in their hands 
and tear them, as it were, to pieces and throw them 
to the winds and trample them under their feet? 
We have to teach men to honor God’s law if we 
expect them to honor the law of man. We see this 
desecration of the Sabbath increasing every year, 
giving up a little here and giving up a little there. 
A few years ago in Chicago we did not have a theater 
open on the Sabbath, but now every theater is open. 
Every Sunday night those theaters are crowded. I 
want to say to the working men, if you give up the 
Sabbath, you give up the best friend you’ve got, and 
it will not be long before these capitalists will take 
your Sabbath and make you work seven days in the 
week, and you will not earn a dollar more than you 
do now in six days. God is our friend; he would 
not have given us one day in seven unless it was for 
our good. Man needs it, beast needs it. So let us 
honor the Sabbath day and keepit holy. If we have 
to give up our business and get some other business, 
let us do it even if we don’t make quite so much 
money. It is a good deal better for us to be right, 
to know we are honoring God, and to have God on 
our side, than it is to be breaking God’s law. Ifa 
father teaches his child not to observe the Sabbath, 
takes him out riding on Sunday, teaches him not to 
go to the house of God, it will not be long before 
that boy will break his father’s commandments. 
You teach him to dishonor God's law and he will 
dishonor yours. Is not that so? Does: history not 


TEKEL. 451 


teach you that? Look around you. Have you got 
to go to the Bible to find that out? Is it not so? 
You take a man that goes around on the Sabbath, 
who don’t teach his boy to go to Sabbath-school and 
to church, but teaches him to play marbles, and it 
will not be long before that boy will break that 
father’s heart—if he has a heart. 

Throw this commandment into the balances and 
Sabbath-breaker, step in. If you do, what will 
become of you? You will find written on the wall, 
‘“Tekel. Thou art weighed in the balances and art 
found wanting.’’ Ifaman cannot keep one day out 
of seven, what is he going to do with that eternal 
Sabbath in heaven? He will not want to go there. 
Heaven would be hell to him. 

I must pass on. ‘‘Honor thy father and thy 
mother.’’ That is another thing that shows we are 
drifting into a dark age. Men seem to be void of 
natural affection. Now, I want to call your atten- 
tion to this fact; wherever you see a young man or 
young lady treating their parents with scorn and 
contempt, you may just mark this, they will never 
prosper. Iam not an old man and I am nota prophet, 
but I have lived long enough to notice that I have 
yet to find the first case where a young man or 
young lady has started out in life that has dishonored 
father and mother, that has treated them with scorn 
and contempt, that has ever prospered. I believe to- 
day one reason why so many men’s ways are hedged 
up, and they do not prosper is because they have 
dishonored their parents. I do not know of any- 
thing that is more contemptible. I do not know of 
anything that sinks a man lower in my estimation, 
then to hear him speak disrespectfully of his father 


452 TEKEL. 


and mother, that cared for him in his childhood, that 
watched over him in sickness and did everything 
they could for him. 

A young man that will go out and get drunk and 
come home at midnight, or 1 or 2 o'clock in the 
morning, knowing his gray-haired mother is sitting 
up for him and weeping, is crushing that mother, 
just breaking her heart, just murdering her by 
degrees. I donot know why it is not just as bad to 
murder your father and mother, break their hearts 
and take months to do it and to kill them, as it is 
to take a revolver and shoot them down at once. 
There are hundreds of young men doing that to-day. 
You haven’t got to go out of Cleveland to find them. 
I venture to say while I am talking here to-night 
some young man is in a brothel or in some saloon 
or billiard hall, who will go home to-night or to- 
morrow morning beastly drunk and curse the 
mother that gave him birth, and curse her gray 
hairs, and perhaps lift up that great strong arm of 
his and beat that mother. Or some husband will 
go and be untrue to some wife and go home, and if 
she says a word, down comes that right arm upon 
her. Yes, it is only’one, two or three murderers 
we have perhaps in jail at atime, but how many 
walk the streets of Cleveland to-day! I tell youa 
young man that don’t honor his father and mother, 
need not expect to prosper in this life, or in the life 
to come. 

There was a young man who used to think con- 
siderable of his parents. He was a very fine look- 
ing young man. His father was a great drunkard, 
and his mother used to take in washing just to give 
that boy an education. She kept him at school and 


TEKEL. 453 


worked hard to doit. But one day he was out on 
the sidewalk talking with that mother. She had 
been washing and was not dressed as well as some 
ladies. He saw a school-mate coming towards him 
and he walked away from that mother. The school- 
mate asked him who that woman was he was talk- 
ing to, and he said it was his washer-woman. 
Ashamed toownhisown mother. You laugh, young 
lady. Shame on such a man as that. I think we 
ought to be ashamed of a man that would speak that 
way of a mother who is toiling day and night to 
give himaneducation. ‘‘Honor thy father and thy 
mother.’’ ‘Treat them kindly, you will not always 
have them. By and by they will be gone. No one 
in the wide world loves you like that mother. No 
one in the wide world loves you like that father. 
Treat them kindly. Make the evening of their 
lives as sweet as you can. It will come back 
again. You will have children by and by, perhaps, 
and they will treat you kindly. But bear in mind 
“if you treat that father and mother with scorn and 
contempt, by and by, after a few years have rolled 
around you will be paid back in your own coin. 
“Be not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatso- 
ever a man soweth that shall he also reap.’’ The 
reaping is coming, and men will have to reap the 
same seed that they sow. 

You treat that aged mother of yours with scorn 
and contempt and expect God to smile on you and 
prosper you, and you will be deceived. 

If there is a man or woman in this audience to- 
night that is not treating father or mother with re- 
spect or kindness, let him step into the balances 
and see how quick they will strike the beam. You 


454 TEKEL. 


will be found lighter than dust in the balances. 
You will find that word ‘‘Tekel’’ blazing out. 
‘*Thou art weighed in the balances and art found 
wanting.”’ 

But I must pass on. ‘Thou shalt not kill.”’ I 
suppose if you had said a few months ago to some 
of those men that have been killing lately that they 
were going to come to that, they would have said, 
‘“‘Am Ia dog that I should doit?’’ They thought 
they would not; but when Satan takes possession 
of a man you don’t know what he will do; you can't 
tell. When a man goes on step by step from one 
thing to another, it will not be long before he will 
be guilty of almost any crime. I have not got to 
killa man tobe amurderer. If I wish a man dead, 
I am a murderer at heart. That is murder. IfI 
get so angry with a man that I wish him dead, I 
am guilty in the sight of God. God looks at the 
heart, not at the outward man. We only look at 
the acts of men, but God looks down in the hearts. 
If I have murder in my heart, if I wish a man or 
woman dead, Iam guilty. ‘‘Thou shalt not kill.’ 
As I said before, there are a good many men who 
are not looked upon as murderers, that really kill 
their parents, kill their children, kill their wives. 
How many drunken men have murdered their wives! 
They have literally killed them inch by inch. They 
have gone to the altar and sworn before the God of 
heaven they would love, cherish, protect and sup- 
port that woman, and inside of five years they have 
become horrid monsters, and beaten that defence- 
less woman, until at last she has gone with a broken 
heart into the grave. Nothing but a cruel husband 
murdered that woman. ‘‘Thoushalt not kill.’’ Do 


TEKEL. 455 


you think a God of judgment, a God of equity, a 
God of mercy will not bring these men into judg- 
ment? 

But I must pass on. We will put these six 
weights right up there, and come tothe next. I 
would pass over this commandment if I dared, but 
when I see what the enemy is doing, when I see 
the terrible, terrible state of things we are having 
all around, in all kinds of society, high and low, I 
feel that I must cry out and spare not. ‘Thou 
shalt not commit adultery.’’ It is a sin that is not 
much spoken of. It is one of those things that we 
like topassover. We hear a good deal about intem- 
perance, but the twin sister of intemperance is adul- 
tery to-day. I want to read to you something that 
will express what I want to say, perhaps, better than 
I can myself—the seventh chapter of Proverbs. 

I want to say to the young people in this audience 
to-night, I do not know of a quicker way to ruin, I 
do not know of a quicker way down to hell than the 
way of the adulterer. Do you know that the aver- 
age life of a fallen woman is only seven years? It 
is very short. How a woman can surrender her 
virtue and take that road is one of the greatest 
mysteries of the present day, when they can look 
around and see how they have brought ruin and 
blight upon their life, and made it dark and bitter. 

Not long ago a scene occurred in Chicago, of a 
mother that left her family in Iowa and a man that 
left his, and they came to Chicago, and after getting 
tired and sick of their life, and remorse, I suppose, 
seized hold of him, at the hotel where they were, he 
cut her throat from ear to ear, and as she fled from 
him into the hall, he cut his own from ear to ear 


456 TEKEL. 


and fled into the hall and embraced her, and the 
adulterer and adulteress died in each other’s arms. 
What a fearfulending! That is occurring all the 
while from one end of the land to the other. ‘‘Thou 
shalt not commit adultery!’’ And I want to say to 
these libertines — these men that think they can 
commit that sin and cover it up, and think it will 
never come to light; some of them come to our pub- 
lic meetings; some of them come into our churches, 
and they sweep down the broad aisle, perhaps, with 
their wives upon their arms; they take the best 
seats, perhaps, in our churches, and they think the 
crime is covered up—be not deceived. You ruin 
some man's daughter, and some vile wretch will 
ruin yours. You will find it out by and by. 

Do you think that God is not going to bring men 
to judgment for this thing? Do you think that men 
can go on, and that they can get clear, and the 
woman be cast out? They say the thing is unequal. 
Well, it may be among men, but bear in mind there 
is a God of equity sitting in the heavens, and this 
thing is going to become straight by and by. Not 
that the women are excused; one is as bad as the 
other. Itis asin, anditis afearful sin. It is asin 
we must cry out against at the present time. Don’t 
let any adulterer or adulteress think he or she is 
going into the kingdom of God. And I want to say 
to the men here to-night, if you are bound to some 
fallen woman, if you are to-night guilty of that 
awful sin, give it up or give up heaven. If God 
should summon you into those balances to-night, 
what would become of you, vile adulterer, what 
would become of you? And you, poor, fallen 


TEKEL. 457 


woman !—you step in and see what would become of 
your soul. ‘‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’’ 

I want to say once more before I pass this com- 
mandment, that people may cavil and laugh and 
make light of it, as they do; but it is one of the 
greatest evils of the present day. Many a man’s 
life is ruined, many a family has been broken up, 
and many a mother has gone down to her grave with 
a broken heart, because a son or a daughter has 
been ruined. It isa time that the church of God 
should send up one cry that our children should be 
. kept. It is a day of temptation. It is a day of 
trial on our right hand and on our left. We are liv- 
ing in a day of decayed conscience, as some one has 
- said. Men are losing their consciences. It is 
astonishing how a mancantalk. I got a letter from 
a man to-day—the first letter I got to-day. He 
stated he was living this kind of a life, and he seems 
to have no conscience about it, and he wanted to 
have me pray that they may be separated,and he says 
if there is a God they will be separated. He doubts 
whether or not there isa God. Men get so steeped 
in sin that they want to stifle conscience, they want 
to deceive themselves, and they begin to reason 
that there is no God at all. You will find out by 
and by there is a God. Bearin mind God will bring 
you into judgment by and by. Because sentence is 
not executed at once is no sign He is not going to 
execute the sentence. Because God don’t bring 
men to judgment at once is no sign he will not come 
to judgment. Hewillcome. Paul reasoned with 
Felix of ‘‘righteousness, temperance and judgment to 
come.’’ God has appointed a day when He will judge 
the world. Men may cavil and laugh as much as 


458 TEKEL. 


they like, but the day is appointed, the hour is 
fixed, and men have got to come to judgment, and 
then sins which you have committed in secret, and 
which you think are covered up, will come to light 
and be made public, unless they are covered by the 
blood of Christ; unless you repent and turn from 
them and ask God to have mercy upon you. They 
will be blazoned out to that great assembled uni- 
verse. : 

But I must passon. ‘*Thou shalt not steal.” Is 
there a man here to-night that is a thief? Oh, no, 
you can say there are no thieves here. Ah, don’t . 
you flatter yourself. There is many a man that 
thinks he is not a thief, that is a thief. When that 
young man takes twenty-five cents out of his em- 
ployer’s till to go to the theater, he is a thief as 
much asif he stole five thousand dollars and got 
caught. When aman appropriates to himself one 
dollar that belongs to some one else, he is a thief in 
the sight of God. A drop of water is water as much 
as Lake Erie is water; and the man that steals five 
cents is a thief in the sight of God as much as if he 
stole five hundred dollars. Some men think that 
they are not thieves unless they get caught; and 
they think if they cover up their tracks and don’t get 
caught they never will be brought to judgment. 
God’s eyes are going to and fro through the earth. 
If you have a dollar that belongs to some one else, 
I beg of you, as a friend, to make restitution before 
you go to bed to-night. Pay it back if you want 
the light of heaven to flash across your path, if you 
want the smile and approbation of God to rest upon 
you, pay it back. You will not prosper as long as 
you have some one else’s money. ‘“‘Thou shalt not 


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TEKEL. 461 


steal.’’ Now go to thinking. Have you anything 
that belongs to some one else? Have you cheated 
any one? Have you jumped on to those horse cars 
and not paid your fare sometimes when there was a 
great crowd and the conductor did not come around 
for it? That is stealing just as much as if you had 
been a defaulter oraforger. Have you been on the 
steam cars, and the conductor did not happen to 
come around and get your fare, and have you said, 
“T have got a ride for nothing’’? You are a thief. 
You laugh at it, but it is not to be laughed at. 
What we want to-day is righteousness in this nation. 
What we want in the church to-day above every 
thing else is downright honesty; and may God give 
it to us! These things are not to be laughed at. 
Do you know how men become defaulters? Just in 
that way. They take a little to begin with, and 
conscience comes up and smites them; but the next 
day they take a little more. Conscience don’t 
trouble them so much. By and by they stifle con- 
science, and they can goon anddoanything. That 
is the way these forgers begin. That is the way 
these defaulters begin. That is the way these great 
noted criminals begin. It is just the entering 
wedge. It is a little thing in their sight. But I tell 
you what we want to remedy is sin, and sin is not 
little. If there is a man here to-night who has com- 
menced a downward course, commenced a dishonest 
life, I want to beg of you to-night, before you sleep, 
make up your mind, God helping you, that you will 
straighten up any dishonesty of which you have 
been guilty, let it cost you what it will. Make resti- 
tution. 

“Thou shalt not bear false witness.’’ I wish I had 


462 TEKEL. 


time to dwell on that, and the next: ‘‘Thou shalt 
not covet.”’ 

There are those ten weights. Now, you cannot 
be weighed by one of them; you must be weighed 
by the whole. Is there a man or woman in this 
audience that is ready to be weighed? Come, I 
have heard so much about morals—is there a moral 
man here to-night? Are you ready? Have you not 
broken that decalogue? Is there aman or woman in 
this audience that has never broken any of those com- 
mandments? If you have broken one, you are guilty. 
Those are not ten different laws, but one law; and if 
I have broken one of those commandments, I have 
broken the law of God, and I am guilty. 

Let the moralist come up to-night and step into 
the scales, and see how quick he will kick the beam. 
Bring on the moralist. He walks up to those golden 
scales, and he sees written there, ‘Except a man 
be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’’ 
He says, ‘‘ You will excuse me to-night, sir. I can’t 
be weighed.’’ He don’t like to step in over the text. 
He knows very well he will be found wanting. He 
knows very well it will be said, “‘Tekel: Thou art 
weighed in the balances and art found wanting. ’ 
He goes around on the other side of the scales and 
he sees, ‘‘Except ye be converted, and become as 
little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom 
of Heaven.’’ ‘‘Well,’’ he says, ‘“‘I think I will not 
be weighed to-night.’’ He is not quite ready to be 
weighed after all. You know these texts were given 
by Christ to the moralists of His day. But, says the 
moralist, ‘‘I will step in, I guess, on the other side. 
I don’t like to step in over this text,’’ and he goes on 
around on the third side, and there he sees: ‘‘Ex- 


TEKEL. 463 


cept ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.’’ He 
says, ‘“‘I will not goin onthat side.’’ He steps 
around to the fourth side. ‘*‘Except your righteous- 
ness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes 
and pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the 
Kingdom of Heaven.’’ ‘‘Well,’’ he says, ‘‘I think 
I will not be weighed in those balances.’’ But bear 
in mind God is going to weigh you inthem. You 
have got to be weighed in them. 

Let the rumseller step up to the scales and see if 

he is ready to be weighed. As he steps up to those 
scales, he finds written there in golden letters: ‘‘Woe 
be to the man that putteth the bottle to his neigh- 
bor’s lips.’’ ‘‘Well,’’ he says, ‘‘I think I won't be 
weighed to-night.’’ He is not ready. 
* Let the drunkard come, rum bottle in hand. He 
looks at those scales and sees: ‘‘No drunkard shall 
inherit the kingdom of God.’’ He says, ‘‘I will not 
step in there to-night. I am afraid it will be found 
written on the wall, as it was on Belshazzer’s wall: 
““Tekel. Thou art weighed in the balances, and art 
found wanting.”’ 

Where is there a man to-night that is ready to be 
weighed. I can imagine a man up in the gallery 
says, ‘‘I wonder what Mr. Moody would do if he was 
to be weighed. I wonder if Mr. Moody is ready to 
step into those scales and to be weighed.’’ I want 
to tell you Iam; and I say it, I hope, without any 
boasting or egotism. You may put into the scales 
all those commandments, every one of them, and I 
am ready to step in against them. Do you want to 
know how? I will take Christin with me. I took 
Him as my Savior twenty odd years ago. I am 
teady to step into those scales with Him at any 


464 TEKEL. 


time. Hewill bring it down. He kept the law. 
He was the end of the law for righteousness’ sake. 
That is man’s only hope. I would not dare to be 
weighed without him; but with Him, I am ready at 
any time, day or night. If God calls me to step 
into those scales to-night, I will step in; and I will 
step in with a shout, too, and I will not be looking 
on the wall to see if it is written ‘*Tekel: Thou art 
weighed in the balances, and art found wanting,”’ 
because Christ has kept the law, and I have got 
Him. He offered himself to me, and I took Him. 
He offers himself to every guilty sinner here to- 
night. To every man and woman who has broken 
that law there is a Saviot offered, there is salvation 
offered, and you can have it and live forever. But 
without Christ, what are you going to do? 


CHAPTER XXXII. 


NO DIFFERENCE. 


You will find my text to-night in the third chapter 
of Romans and the 22d verse. ‘‘For there is no differ- 
ence.’’ I will venture tosay there are a good many 
here to-night that will differ with the text. But I 
didn’t make it; and I am not going to quarrel with 
you. If you don’t like it you must settle it with 

*the Word of God. I just give it you as I have got it. 
If I had a servant working for me and I should send 
that servant to deliver a message, and he thought it 
didn’t sound right and should change the message, 
I think I should change servants, I should want him 
to deliver the message just as I sent it. If I am 
going to be the messenger of God to-night—if I am 
going to preach the gospel to you, I have to give 
you the law as well as the gospel. 

Now, we find in this third chapter of Romans, 
Paul is bringing in the law to show man his guilt. 
If a man wants to read his own biography he should 
turn to the third chapter of Romans and he will find 
it allthere. A great many men are anxious to get 
their lives written. Why, they are already written. 
God knows more about you than you do about your- 
selves. If you want to find out what a man is by 
nature, all you have to do is to read the third chapter 
of Romans. Itisallthere. If you want to find out 

465 


466 NO DIFFERENCE. 


what God is, read the third chapter of Jonn and you 
will find that God so loved the world, even fallen 
man, that He gave His Son to die for him. 

Now, I do not know a text in the Bible that the 
natural man dislikes any more than this one. I 
have a great many people attack me for preaching 
this doctrine of ‘‘No difference.’’ I was led to take 
it up to-night by what I heard last night in the 
inquiry room. There was a moralist there—that is, 
he said he was a moralist—and he could not under- 
stand just how he was as bad as other people. Now, 
the longer I live, and the more I mingle with men, 
the more I am convinced that moralists are scarce, 
after all. There are a great many who think they 
are very moral; but I venture to say, if your sins 
and my sins—I won’t leave out one now; I take 
every man and woman in this audience—if all our 
secret thoughts, and all that has been in our hearts, 
should be written on yonder wall, there would be 
the greatest stampede you ever saw. You would 
get out of this hall as if you were struck with the 
plague. You know very well that if your sins were 
all brought to light you would not talk about being 
moralists, or about being so very good. Now, man 
is not so very good by nature after all. ‘‘The heart 
is deceitful above all things.’’ Manis being deceived | 
by his own heart. Man is bad by nature. I don’t 
think you have got to go inside of yourself to find 
out that you are bad. If you will only get a look at 
yourself, if man could only see himself as God sees 
him, he would not be talking about his righteous- 
ness. It would be gone very quick. 

Now, just the moment we begin to preach from 
this text man begins to strengthen up and say, “I 


NO DIFFERENCE. 467 


don't believe it.’” We think we are a little better 
than our neighbors—a little better than other people. 
The next verse throws light uponit. ‘‘There is 


no difference, for all have sinned and come short of 
the glory of God.’’ Every one. 

It would be an absurd thing to make a law with- 
out a penalty. I believe the state of Massachusetts, 
a few years ago, did make a law without a penalty, 
and that legislature became the laughing stock of 
the whole state. What is a law without a penalty? 
Suppose your state legislature should pass a law 
that no man in the state of Ohio shall steal, and fix 
no penalty to it, the thieves would be in your houses 
before you got home to-night. What do they care 
fora law that has no penalty? God’s law has a 
penalty to it. There are not ten different laws. 

They are one law. Some people seem to think 
the ten commandments are ten differentlaws. They 
are one law. If you have broken one of them you 
have broken the law, and are therefore guilty. I 
need not break the decalogue to be a sinner; if I 
break one of these commandments I have broken 
the law of God. You need not take up all the rails 
on the railroad track between here and Chicago to 
have a collision—only one rail. A man may say he 
has a good fence around his pasture, but if he leaves 
one gap the cattle get out. What is the fence good 
for? Take one inch of pipe out of that gas pipe and 
the gas is cut off from this building. You need not 
take out all the pipe—take out one inch and there is 
no gas. Soif aman has broken the law of God he 
is guilty; he is acriminal in the sight of God. That 
is the teaching of the third chapter of Romans. You 
will find it all through the teachings of Christ: he 


468 NO DIFFERENCE. 


that breaketh the least of the law is guilty of all. 
Why? Because he has broken the law of God. He 
has transgressed the law of God and become guilty 
in the sight of a pure God. A perfect God could 
give nothing but a perfect law—a perfect standard. 
There is no trouble about the law. Your life and 
property would not be safe if it were not for the law. 
The law is all right. Skeptics find fault with the 
Bible. You seldom find an infidel attacking the law 
of God. That is allright. We have to have law— 
could not live without law. The trouble is, man 
has broken the law of God. If you have broken 
one commandment you are guilty in the sight of 
God. If I was hanging from yonder ceiling by a 
chain of one hundred links and one link should 
break, down I would come. The links do not all 
need to break to let me fall. 

When God put man in Eden he bound him to the 
throne of heaven by a golden chain. When Adam 
fell he broke that golden chain. Man is lost. He 
is out of communion with God. Some men say, 
‘‘Well, do you pretend to say I am as bad as other 
people?’ I don’t know but what you are worse. 
The moralist straightens up and says, ‘‘I am not as 
bad as that drunkard. Do you call me as bad as 
that thief, that adulterer, and that libertine? Do 
you call me as bad as that forger, that defaulter?”’ 
I don’t know but what you are worse; really, I 
can’t tell. God judges us according to the light we 
have had. Suppose I have had nothing but light 
from earliest childhood up; that I have been nursed 
in a religious family; I have heard all about God, 
but I turn my back upon all His teachings, and I 
praise myself because I think I am better than other 


NO DIFFERENCE. 469 


people, and call myself a moralist. Here is a young 
man who has a cursing father and a cursing mother, 
and has heard nothing but cursings and blasphemies. 
He has had no light. It may be I am worse in the 
sight of God than that man. The idea of a man 
drawing the filthy rags of self-righteousness about 
him and thinking he is better than other people! 
The fact is, there is not any thing that grows on 
this Adam tree that is good. It is all bad. I will 
admit that some men have more fruit than others. 
Suppose you have two trees, both miserable, worth- 
less, good for nothing. One has five hundred apples 
and the other only five. One has more fruit, . but 
both bad. So one may be more fruitful in bringing 
forth sin, but both bad. 

A friend of mine went into a jail some time ago 
and fell to talking with the prisoners. He began to 
talk with one who was a murderer, and he tried to 
rouse the man up to talk about his awful guilt, but 
the man thought he was not so very bad after all. 
‘“Why,’’ said he, ‘“‘you talk as if I was the worst 
man inthe world. There is a man down in the 
other cell who has killed six men; I have only killed 
one.’ There he was trying to justify himself. 
That is the cry all over the world at the present 
time. Men are measuring themselves by men, and 
they think that because they have not committed as 
many sins as other people they are not so bad. If 
they could just get a glimpse of their own hearts, 
they would see that they were black and vile. 

Now, God never gave the law to save any man. 
The law was given that every man’s mouth might 
be stopped, and the whole world become guilty 
before God. When a man gets a good look at him- 


A710 NO DIFFERENCE. 


self in God’s law, he does not try to make out that 
he is better than other people; he gets down in the 
dust, and he cries, ‘‘God be merciful to me a sin- 
ner.”* 

Suppose an artist should come here to Cleveland 
and advertise that he could photograph men’s hearts 
—that he could get a correct likeness of what is in 
a man’s heart—do you think he would take a single 
likeness in all Cleveland? People arrange their 
toilets, go to the artists and get their photographs 
taken; and if the artist flatters them a little and 
makes them look a little better than they really do 
look, they say, ‘‘Yes, that is a very good likeness,’’ 
and they send it to their friends and pass it around 
by post. I got one to-night from a friend, and it 
was a very fine one. 

But suppose you could get a photograph of your 
heart. Do you think you would send that around? 
There is not a man in all Cleveland who would have 
a photograph of his heart taken. You know it very 
well. There is not any thing that will close a man’s 
mouth about his being so pure, and good, and 
moral, as to get a look at himself in God’s looking- 
glass. The law is God’s looking-glass dropped down 
into the world that man may see himself as God sees 
him. Or, in other words, the law is made that man 
may see how he has fallen short of God’s standard. 

Just a little while before the Chicago fire, I said 
tomy family at breakfast that I would come home 
after dinner and take them out riding. My little 
boy jumped up and said, ‘‘Papa, will you take us up 
to Lincoln Park to see the bears?’’ ‘‘Yes, take you 
up to Lincoln Park to see the bears.”” You know 
that boys like to see animals. I hadn’t more than 


NO DIFFERENCE. 471 


gone off before he began to tease his mother to get 
him ready. She washed him, put a white dress on 
him, got him all ready. Then he wanted to go out- 
doors. When he was a little fellow he had a strange 
passion for eating dirt, and when I drove up, his 
face was all covered with dirt and his dress was 
dirty. He came running up to me and wanted me 
to take him up in the carriage to Lincoln Park. 
Said I, ‘‘Willie, I can’t take you in that state; I 


have got to wash you.’’ ‘‘No, I’seclean!” ‘“‘No, 
you are not. You are dirty. I shall have to wash 
you before I can take you out riding.’’ ‘‘O, I’se 
clean, I’se clean! Mamma washed me.”’ ‘‘No,”’ I 


said, ‘‘you are not.’’ The little fellow began to cry, 
and I thought the quickest way to stop him was to 
show him himself. So I got out of the carriage, 
and took him into the house, and showed him his 
face in the looking-glass. That stopped his mouth. 
He never said his face was clean after he saw himself 
But I didn’t take the looking-glass to wash him 
with. I took him away tothe water. The law is 
only given to show man his needs; to show man 
his guilt—not to save him. The law is a school- 
master to bring him to Christ. But the law never 
saved a man, never will, and nevercan. The law 
condemns me, shows me my guilt. But Christ 
comes and saves me from the curse of the law. 
Paul says, in this very chapter, that the law was given 
that every mouth might be stopped; and when men 
will get done measuring themselves by their neigh- 
bors, by their friends, and will begin to measure 
themselves by God’s law, they will see just where 
they are. They will see how they have sinned and - 


472 NO DIFFERENCE. 


come short of the glory of God; and they will not 
see it before. 

Why, you may go to yonder prison at Columbus, 
and you will find there, probably, a thousand prison- 
ers, more or less, some of them are there for forg- 
ery, some for rape, some for theft, some for man- 
slaughter, some for murder; and you will find, per- 
haps, a hundred different kinds of prisoners. But 
the law makes no difference. They have all sinned, 
and come short of the requirements of the law of 
the state. They have broken the law. They have 
transgressed and when they came to that prison 
they all went in alike. Their hair was cut short 
and they put on the garb of the prison and they are 
there. ‘‘There is no difference.’’ The law of this 
state recognizes ‘‘no difference.’’ They are crim- 
inals. They are guilty. 

Not long ago one of these whiskey men was taken 
up by the law—a man estimated to be worth a mil- 
lion dollars—and he was sent to prison, and when 
he got to the prison door and wanted to take his 
trunk in, they said, ‘‘No, you can’t take that.’’ 
‘“‘Well,’’ he said, “I am afraid I can’t get on with 
the prison fare, and I have brought a few things 
for my own comfort.’’ ‘‘No,’’ they said, “‘there is 
no difference here. The law recognizes no differ- 
ence.’” 

You may divide society into a hundred classes. 
There are the rich and the poor, the learned and 
the unlearned, menof culture, menof science. But 
the law of God recognizes no difference. If a man 
has broken the law of God, I tell you, my friends, 
there is no difference; and the quicker you can find 
it out the better. A man up here on this avenue, 


NO DIFFERENCE. 473 


worth his millions, who dies without Christ, without 
God and without hope, goes down to his grave like 
a beggar, and there will be no difference one minute 
after his death; and ten days after he is in his grave 
the worms will feed upon his body as they would 
upon a beggar. We make a great difference, but 
God does not look at things as we do. 

Now, the. object of this discourse is to get you 
people to-night to give up measuring yourselves by 
other people. If you want to get a correct .meas- 
urement, measure yourself by the law of God, and 
see where you are. 

A-few years ago, when the city of Chicago was 
incorporated as a city, they gave the Mayor power 
to appoint policemen. When the city was small, 
the plan worked very well, but when it got to be 
large, it was too much power in one man's hands, 
and he would use that power to secure his re-elec- 
tion, and the thing worked disastrously for the city 
government. Some citizens went to Springfield to 
our legislature, and got through a Police bill that 
took the power out of the hands of the Mayor, and 
placed it in the hands of a Board of Police Commis- 
sioners. The law provided that no man should be 
a policeman unless he was of acertain height. I 
remember there was a great rush to headquarters 
to get appointments as policemen. Men were going 
all over the city getting recommendations, because 
it was said no man would get an appointment that 
hadn’t a good character. Now, for my illustration. 
Suppose that Mr. Doane and myself want to get in 
as policemen; we are running around getting letters 
from leading men of Chicago. We meet at the door 
at the appointed time, and I say, ‘‘Mr. Doane, I 


‘474 NO DIFFERENCE. 


think I have as good a chance as any man in this 
crowd. I have letters from United States senators, 
representative in Congress, the mayor of the city 
and judges of the supreme court.’’ ‘‘Well,’’ says 
Mr. Doane, ‘‘I have letters from the same ones, and 
I am sure they do not speak any more highly of you 
_than they doofme.’’ Istep up to the Commissioner 
and lay down my letters, and the Commissioner says 
to me, ‘‘Mr. Moody, those letters may be all right, 
‘but before we read those letters, we will measure 
you. Thelaw says you must be of a certain height.”’ 
I stand up and am measured, but I don’t come 
‘within the requirement of the law. The law says I 
‘must be five feet and six inches—for illustration call 
it that—and I am only five feet. I do not come 
but within a half a foot of it, and he hands the letters 
back to me and says, ‘‘Your~letters may be all 
right, Mr. Moody, but you have come short of the 
standard; the law says you shall be five feet and six 
inches.’’ Mr. Doane looks down upon me and he 
says, ‘‘Mr. Moody, I am a little taller than you are.”’ 
I say, ‘‘Mr. Doane, don’t say anything, wait until 
you are measured.”” Mr. Doane steps up, and he is 
five feet five inches and nine-tenths of an inch. 
He has come short only one-tenth of an inch. 
There is no difference. 
<* The way to measure yourself is by God’s require- 
ments. Is there a man here who is willing to be 
measured to-night? Are you willing to be measured 
by the law of God, and not by your neighbors and 
by your friends? That is working the mischief. 
People are all the time measuring themselves by 
their neighbors and friends. Be measured by the 
law of God, and see where you are. I do not know 


NO DIFFERENCE. 475 


of anything that will stop a man’s mouth quicker. 
He will not be talking about being better than his 
neighbors if he measures himself by God’s law. 
Have you kept it? That is the question. 

I can imagine Noah leaving the ark and going out 
to preach from this text: ‘There is no difference. 
Every man that does not get into the ark shall per- 
ish.'’ Those antedeluvians would have laughed at 
him; they would have said, ‘‘Noah you had better 
get back into the ark and not talk that stuff to us.” 
““There is no difference. All are going to perish 
alike,’’ says Noah. ‘‘Every man that does not get 
into the ark will perish.’’ They would have caviled 
at him and laughed at him. I doubt whether or not 
they would not have stoned him to death. But did 
that change the fact? The flood came and took them 
all away—kings, governors, judges, rulers, drunk- 
ards, harlots, thieves all swept away alike. ‘‘There 
is no difference, for all have sinned and come short 
of the glory of God.’”’ I can imagine Abraham leav- 
ing his tent and Lot going down into Sodom a few 
days before Sodom was destroyed, and preaching 
fromthetext. ‘‘Thereisno difference, God is going 
to rise in judgment upon these cities of the plain. 
Every man that doesnot escape from this city God 
will destroy. When he comes to deal in judgment 
there will be no difference.’’ Those Sodomites 
would have laughed at him. They would have told 
him he had better go back to his tent and his altar. 
But the fire came and they were all destroyed alike. 
The king of Sodom, princes, eet i tulers, all 
fe alike. 

-I can imagine Christ preaching to those men in 
Jerusalem. ‘‘God is going to judge Jerusalem, and 


476 NO DIFFERENCE. 


when God comes in judgment there will be no differ- 
ence.’’ And when God judged Jerusalem eleven 
hundred thousand perished. There was no differ- 
ence. All perished alike. 

It seems to me I got a glimpse in the Chicago fire 
of what the Judgment will be, when I saw that fire 
rolling down the streets of Chicago, twenty and 
thirty feet high, consuming man and everything in 
its march that did not flee. I saw there the million- 
aire and the beggar fleeing alike. There was no 
difference. That night our great men, learned men, 
wise men, all fled alike. There was no difference. 
And when God comes to judge the world, there will 
be no difference. Because you are in a higher posi- 
tion, or because you have a little wealth, because 
you have a title to your name or some position in 
this world, if you are out of Christ—out of the ark, 
it will make no difference. God has provided an 
ark of refuge. God says, ‘‘Come in.’”’ God has 
provided salvation. ‘‘The grace of God hath 
appeared bringing salvation to allmen.’’ Youspurn 
the offer of mercy. You just turn aside from this 
gift. Many a man is kicking this unspeakable gift 
around as he would a foot-ball—as if it was not 
worth picking up. Whose fault is it? God has pro- 
vided salvation for all. Many a man turns his head 
with a scornful look and says: ‘‘I don’t want it.”’ 
Ah, my friends, if you refuse this gift you must 
perish. There will be no difference when God comes 
in judgment. 

. Wherever man had been tried without God he 
has been a failure. God put Adam in Eden, sur- 
rounded him with everything that heart could de- 
sire, and Satan walked in and stripped him of every- 


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NO DIFFERENCE. 479 


thing he had. I don’t believe Satan was in the 
garden thirty minutes before he had everything 
that Adam had. He was a failure. Then God 
took man and made a covenant with him. He says 
to Abraham, “‘I will multiply thy seed as the stars 
of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea 
shore.’’ After that covenant man was a failure. 
He turned away from God. What a stupendous 
failure man was under the Judges! Then we find 
God bringing them to Sinai and giving them the 
law. Who would have thought they were not going 
to keep it! Moses went up into the mountain to 
have an interview with God and took Joshua with 
him, and was gone but forty days. Those men 
gathered around Aaron and said, ‘‘Where is 
Moses? We do not know anything about him. 
Make us a god to worship.’’ They brought gold to 
him and he made them a golden calf. These very 
men that were going to keep the law, inside of 
thirty days were bowing down and worshiping a 
golden calf, and their children have been at it ever 
since. More people to-day bow down to the golden 
calf than to the God of heaven. Man away from 
God is a stupendous failure. Man was a failure un- 
der the prophets. Now, we have been two thousand 
years under grace, which means undeserved mercy; 
and what is man under grace but a failure without 
God? Pick up your daily papers and look at your 
daily records. Look at that transaction in Cincin- 
nati within forty-eight hours! Look at what is 
occurring in all the towns, cities, and villages! 
Man away from God is a failure. When will men 
learn the lesson? 

2 But I can imagine some of you say, “‘Is there no 


480 NO DIFFERENCE. 


star to light thisdarkness? Are we to be left under 
this law?’’ Right here comes this gospel. Jesus 
came to redeem us from the law. Christ was the 
end of the law for righteousness’ sake. He has 
atoned for sin. He has by the sacrifice of Himself 
put away sin. The law cannot touch me. Blessed 
truth. The lawcondemns me, but Christ saves me. 
The law casts me down, but Christ lifts me up. If 
you can afford to turn away from such a Savior and 
go on in your sins and take the consequences, you 
can take a greater responsibility upon yourself than 
I would dare to do. 

Perhaps I can illustrate this by an incident that 
occurred during our war. When the war broke out 
there was a young man in New Englard who was 
engaged to be married toa young lady. He enlisted 
for three years. Letters passed between them. He 
wrote to her after every battle. The three years 
were nearly up. She was counting the days before he 
would return. The battle of the Wilderness came 
on. She got no letter for sometime. Day after 
day she went to the little village postoffice, but got 
no letter; but at last one came in a strange hand- 
writing, written by one of his comrades. She tore 
it open. It stated that he had lost both of his arms 
in that battle, and how he loved her, but as he 
would be dependent upon the charities of a cold 
world for his support, and as she was worthy of a 
noble husband he released her from the engagement 
and she was at liberty to marry whom she pleased. 
She never answered that letter. The next train 
that left that little village for the South she was on. 
She went to the army, and her tears and entreaties 
took her beyond the lines, and she got down to the 


NO DIFFERENCE. 481 


hospital in the Wilderness. She got the number of 
the ward or the cothe was in. She went down that 
long line of cots and at last her eye fixed upon that 
number. She rushed to that cot, and bent over and 
kissed that armless man, and she said, ‘‘I will never 
give youup. These hands will toil for you. Iam 
able tosupport you andcarefor you.’”’ That young 
man could have spurned her offer and turned her 
away and said, ‘‘No, I willnot carry out the engage- 
ment.’’ He was a free agent. But she came to 
him in his helpless condition, and now they are 
living ahappy life. She has been true to her word. 

She takes care of that man. 

_ Ah, my friends, it is a poor illustration of what 
Jesus Christ will do for every sinner in this hall to- 
night. We are worse than armless. We are dead 
in trespassesandsins. Christ came from the throne 
of heaven and redeemed us from the law. ‘‘He 
bore our sins for us in his own body on the tree.’ 
“He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised 
for our iniquity, and by His stripes we are healed.”’ 
He took the penalty of the law into His own bosom. 
He tasted death forevery man. Christ was the end 
of the law by giving up His own life. Sinner, will 
you have Him as your Savior? Will you let Him 
redeem you from the curse of the law to-night? 
Will you to-night pass from death unto life? You 
can, if you will, have Him. ‘‘He that hath the Son 
hath life, and he that hath not the Son hath not 
life.’” And when you and I stand before God, the 
question will be: ‘‘What did you do with My Son? 
I offered you eternal life through Him. - What did- 
you do with Him?’’ - - aa 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 


GRACE 


My subject is that we have just been singing 
about, ‘‘Grace.’’ It is one of those Bible words we 
hear so often and know so little about. You hear a 
great many people talking about their not being 
worthy to come to Christ; they would like to come, 
but they are not worthy, they are not good enough. 

That isa sign they know nothing about grace at 
all. Grace means unmerited mercy, undeserved 
favor. Just because man don’t deserve it, God deals 
in grace with him. And when we see it in that 
light we will get done trying to establish our own 
righteousness and our own good deeds, and take 
Christ as God would have us. 

Now there is not any part of the Bible in which 
you will not find God shining out in grace; or, in 
other words, He wants to deal with all men in grace. 
He don’t delight in judgment. He delights in 
mercy. Thatisoneof his attributes. He is anxious 
to deal in mercy with every man, woman and child 
on the face of the earth. But the trouble is, men 
are running away from the God of grace, they don’t 
want grace, won’t have it, won’t take it as a gift. 

In proof of this you will find that away back in 
Eden, the first thing after the fallof man, God deal- 
ing in grace with Adam. You find, as you read the 

482 


GRACE. 483 


account of his fall, of his transgression, that there 
is not any sign at ali of repentance. When God 
came to deal with Adam there is not any sign of 
Adam asking for pardon. If he asked for pardon it 
has not been put on record. There is no confes- 
sion; there is no contrition; there is no prayer for 
mercy; and yet we find the God of all grace dealing 
with Adam there in Eden in love—in grace. He 
had mercy uponhim. If He had dealt in judgment 
without grace, He would have hurled him out of 
Eden, or He would have let Eden be his resting 
place. He would have perished right there in Eden. 
But we find God dealt in grace with Adam. He 
pitied him, and He had mercy upon him. 

You will find that, all through the Old Testament, 
grace here and there shines out; but we don’t see it 
in its fulness until Christ came. He was the em- 
bodiment of grace and truth. 

In the first chapter of John’s gospel and the four- 
teenth verse it says, ‘‘And the Word was made flesh, 
and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the 
glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of 
grace and truth. For the law was given by Moses, 
but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” 

Again, in the fifth chapter of Romans and the 
fifteenth verse, we read, ‘‘But not as of the offense, 
so also is the free gift.”’ Emphasize that little word 
free. Itisa free gift. ‘‘For if through the offence 
of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, 
and the gift by grace, which is oY one man, Jesus 
Christ, hath abounded unto many.’ 

Now, grace came by Jesus Christ and hath 
abounded unto many. As we lost life in the first 
Adam, we get life in the second Adam. We lost 


484 GRACE. 


everything, you might say, in the first Adam, but 
we get it all back, and more, too, in the second 
Adam. He came full of grace to have mercy on 
man and to save. We cannot get the grace of God 
except through His Son. That is the channel that 
the gifts of God flow through. If a man thinks he 
is going to get by Christ and going right to the 
Father and have God deal in mercy with him he is 
deceiving himself. Christ is the anointed one, the 
sentone. God sent Him to deal in grace with men; 
and if you want the God of all grace to meet you 
and bless you, you must meet Him at the foot of the 
cross; you must meet Him in Christ. 

When the nations around Egypt went down into 
Egypt to get corn, the king of Egypt sent them to 
Joseph. Heputevery thing in Joseph's hands. So 
the King of heaven has put every thing in Christ’s 
hands; andif you want mercy you must go to Christ, 
because He delights in mercy; and there is nota 
man or woman on the face of the earth who really 
want mercy that cannot find itin Him. He is the 
God of all grace; that is what Peter says. Men talk 
about grace, but the fact is we don’t know much 
about grace. If I went to a bank and had a pretty 
good reputation for having money, if I was worth 
consderable, and I could get another man that was 
worth a little more to endorse my note, I might get, 
perhaps, five hundred dollars for a little while, but 
I would have to give a note, and perhaps have to 
secure that note, and it would read, ‘‘Thirty days 
after date, or sixty days after date, I promise to 
pay.’’ Then they give what they call three days 
grace, and they make you pay interest for those 
three days; and if you are short a dollar they will 


GRACE. 485 


sell every thing you have to get that from you. 
Men call that grace. They don’t know anything 
about grace at all. If they had grace they would 
give you not only the principal, but the interest and 
all. That iswhatgraceis. I think the reason men 
know so little about grace is that they are measur- 
ing God by their own rule. Now, we lovea man as 
long as he is worthy of our love. When he is not 
we cast him off. Not so with the God of all grace. 
Nothing will give him greater pleasure than to deal 
in mercy—to deal in grace. 

Paul is called the apostle of grace. Ifyou look at 
his fourteen epistles carefully, you will find that 
every one of them winds up with a prayer for grace. 

Now, I want to call your attention to a scene that 
occurred in the life of Christ. See how grace just 
flowed out. There was a woman came to him who 
had a daughter who was greviously tormented at 
home. Perhaps some of you have children that are 
possessed of bad spirits, possessed of a demon, chil- 
dren that are just breaking your hearts and bringing 
ruin upon your home and bitterness into your life. 
Well, this woman had a child that was grievously 
tormented, and she started off to Christ. Hevwas 
coming to the coast of Tyre and Sidon, and she came 
out to that coast. She was not an Israelite. He 
had come for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 

God sent him first to the Jews. But grace would 
flow out. The apostles tried to keep it back, but it 
would flow out. He came inthe borders of that 
country, and this woman had faith, and she came 
and cried to the Lord to help her, and she kept cry- 
ing. The Lord knew all about her, but He wanted 
to teach those Jews around Him a lesson. He 


486 GRACE. 


wanted to teach them the lesson of grace. The 
most difficult thing Christ had to do when He was 
down here was to teach those Jews grace. The men 
that were around Him, even those twelve apostles, 
could not understand about this grace. They were 
all the time going around establishing their own 
righteousness. ‘‘We are of the seed of Jacob; we 
are the descendants of Moses and Abraham.”’ They 
thought they were better than the nations around 
them. They called the nations around them Gentile 
dogs, but they were the seed of Abraham. He was 
trying to teach them grace. They could not under- 
stand it. This woman comes to the coast of Tyre 
and Sidon and begins tocry forhelp. The disciples 
tried to send her away. She was terribly in earn- 
est, and she kept praying right there in the streets. 
She was hungering for something. I hope some one 
has come up to this Tabernacle to day hungering 
for something. You will get it if you are hunger- 
ing and thirsting forit. She was terribly in earn- 
est. She wanted the Lord to blessher. She put 
herself right in the place of that child. At last one 
of the twelve—perhaps it was Peter; he was gener- 
ally the spokesman of the twelve—says: ‘Lord, 
send her away; she is bothering us.’’ Ah! Peter 
did not know the heart of the Savior. He hada 
blessing in His heart for that woman. But the 
woman kept oncrying. At last He thought He would 
try her, and Hesays: ‘‘It is not meet to take the 
children’s bread and cast it to the dogs.’’” Now, if 
she had been like some women in Cleveland she 
would have probably said, ‘‘ What! you call me a dog, 
do you? I won't take anything from you. I know 
lots of women who are meaner than Iam; and worse 





GRACE. 487 


than Iam. There’s a woman lives down on the 
same street I live, and she belongs to the seed of 
Abraham, and she is a good deal meaner than I 
am.’’ How mad she would have got! But see 
what she did: ‘‘Yes, Lord; but the dogs eat of the 
crumbs that fall from his Master’stable.’’ Ah, it 
pleased the Master wonderfully. He did not send 
her away. ‘‘Oh, woman, great is thy faith. Be it 
unto thee as thou wilt.’’ That isa blank check for 
her to fill out. The whole treasury of heaven was 
open to her, and she could walk in and take what 
she wanted. She did not come with any work. She 
did not come with any tears. She just came for 
mercy. And that beautiful prayer—some people 
tell us they can’t pray; but this is one of the most 
beautiful prayers on record. ‘‘Lord,’’—she called 
him Lord; He was divine; He was not mere man— 
“Lord, help me.’’ Three golden links bound her 
right to the God of all grace. You tell me you can’t 
pray! Why, that little child there can make that 
prayer, “‘Lord, help me.’’ That is all she said, and 
that is cilshe wanted. She wanted help. She had 
come for that, and she got it. If you come to-day 
to meet the God of all grace and want help, He is 
ready to help you. Hedelightsto help. He likes 
to give gifts to the sonsof men. He says, “‘It is 
more blessed to give than to receive.’’ He has gifts, 
and He wants to give every one of us some to-day, 
if we will receive them. He is full of grace. ,It 
don’t grieve Him to have uscome too often. It 
don’t grieve Him to have us ask too great things. 
The only way we can displease God is not to come 
often enough; and when we do come not to ask for 
enough. This woman came for a blessing, and she 


488 GRACE. 


got it. She went right home and found that child 
perfectly whole. 

In the seventh chapter of Luke you will find an- 
other case where grace seems to come out. A cer- 
tain centurion’s servant was sick, and when the cen- 
turion heard of Jesus, he sent the elders of the Jews 
to ask Him to come and heal his servant. And the » 
Jews came and said, ‘‘Lord, there is a centurion 
whose servant is very ill, and he wants to have you 
come and heal him; and we want to have you come 
at once, because he is worthy?’’ Now, mark this: 
The Jews put it on the ground of his worthiness. 
What had he done to make him worthy? Why, he 
had built a synagogue. They thought Christ ought 
to stop His work and turn aside at once and go and 
heal that man’s servant, because he was worthy. 
They put it on the ground of works—because he 
had built asynagogue. Do you know, I believe 
that is the mischief with many of our churches. I 
believe that is the trouble with a good many people. 
They think God is under obligations to them. They 
think God owes them something. They think be- 
cause they have built a synagogue, or helped build 
some church, or endowed some college, that God 
ought to deal in grace with them and ought to have 
mercy uponthem. Now, it is ‘‘to him that worketh 
not, but believeth.’’ Now, Christ starts to go to 
that centurion’s house asif He was going to deal 
with him in that way—as if He was going to put it 
on the ground of works. But before He gets to his 
house, the man sent friends to Him, saying, ‘‘Lord, 
don’t trouble yourself; I am not worthy that you 
should come into my house; neither thought I my- 
self worthy to ask you; so I sent these Jews.’’ He 


GRACE. 489 


thought other people better than himself. AndI 
tell you when a man gets there, he gets in a posi- 
tion where God can deal in grace with him; he is 
pretty near the kingdom of heaven. But the trouble 
with us Americans is, we think we are a little better 
than other people. We just reverse God’s order, 
and we think that other people are a little lower 
down, and a little worse than we are. But this cen- 
turion thought he was not worthy to come and ask 
Christ to heal his servant. He sent men to Him 
saying, ‘Now, you speak the word, and it will be 
done.’’ That pleased Christ. He turned around 
and said to those Jews, ‘‘I have not found so great 
faith, no, not in Israel.’’ Here was a centurion. 
He did not belong to the tribe of Abraham; but 
among the Jews He had not found a men that had 
such faith. The Lord said the word, and the serv- 
ant was healed right then and there. -He dealt in 
grace with him. So when you and I arein sucha 
position that God can deal in grace with us, that 
very moment God deals in grace with us. Well, 
when is it? Whenweare just nothing, and are will- 
ing to let God have mercy upon us, then He will 
have mercy, not before. 

Now, if you will turn to Ephesians you will find 
that He deals in grace without works. You hear 
people talk about trying to do better. They think 
they can do something that will commend them to 
God, and that God will have mercy upon them. 
Instead of giving up all works and letting God save 
them in His own way, they are trying to work their 
way to God, and that is the reason that they do not 
come. I believe to-day that works is one of the 
great obstacles in the way. Men are trying to put 


490 GRACE. 


their good works in the place of a Savior. In the 
second chapter of Ephesians, second verse, we read, 
““That in the ages to come He might show the ex- 
ceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward 
us through Jesus Christ. For by grace are you saved 
through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the 
gift of God.’’ Through grace are you saved. Now 
mark the words. There is one lady that is not 
listening. She has gone to sleep. I wish, friends, 
if you see any one asleep you would just hunch 
them with your elbow and wake them. You may 
save a soul in that way. ‘‘For by grace are ye 
saved through faith, and that not by yourselves! It 
is the gift of God; not of works; lest any man 
should boast.’’ 

There will be one thing we will miss when we get 
to heaven, and that is boasting. We hear enough 
of that down here. I am sure I don’t want to hear 
any more. You cannot go into any of these cities 
hardly but what you find a lot of self-made men 
boasting of what they have done—started poor and 
got rich, and have done this and this. It is, I I— 
boasting. I am sure there would be a good deal of 
boasting in heaven, if men could get there by their 
works. But you cannot get there in that way. If 
you get there, you have to get there by the sover- 
eign grace of God. Salvation is.a gift. You must 
take it as a gift. Ifa man could get to heaven by 
works, he would carry boasting into heaven with 
him. Suppose a man could work his way up to 
heaven, what is he going to do when he gets there? 
He could not join the chorus around the throne 
singing the song of redemption. He would have to 
have a little harp and get off ina corner by himself. 


GRACE. 491 


Then in the eleventh chapter of Romans and sixth 
verse Paul says, ‘‘And if by grace, then it is no 
more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. 
But if it be of works, then is itno more grace.’’ He 
is there bringing out the point. He says, if men 
are saved by works there is no grace about it at all. 

Paul saysin the fourth chapter of Romans and 
fifth verse, ‘‘It is to him that worketh not, but be- 
lieveth.’’ We get salvation by faith and not by 
works. Not but that salvation is worth working for. 
It is worth climbing mountains, crossing rivers, 
swimming streams, crossing deserts and lakes and 
going round the world on our hands and knees for. 
It is worth it, no doubt about it, but you can’t get in 
that way, you can’t get it by works. ‘‘It is to him 
that worketh not but believeth.’’ If I employed a 
man to work for me all day and I gave him two dol- 
lars for the day’s work, and he goes home and his 
wife says to him, ‘‘John, where did you get that two 
dollars?’’ and he said, ‘‘I worked and earned it,’’ 
there would be no grace about it at all. But sup- 
pose he is sick and could not work, or suppose I did 
not have any work for him and he was in distress, 
and I gave him two dollars. Hegoes home and his 
wife says, ‘‘John, where did you get that money?’’ 
and he says, ‘‘Why, it is a gift; Mr. Moody gave it 
tomnes > 

Now, if you ever get salvation you have to take it 
as a gift. You cannot buy it, and you cannot get it 
by your good works. 

Suppose I should say to this audience, if anybody 
wants this Bible he can have it, anda man steps up, 
I reach out the Bible, he takes it, puts it under his 
arm and starts off home. He gets home, and his 


492 GRACE. 


wife says, ‘‘John, where did you get that Bible?’’ 
And he says, ‘‘Why, Mr. Moody gave it to me.’’ 
That would be a gift. But suppose I should say I 
will give the Bible to any one that wants it, anda man 
comes up and says, ‘‘Mr. Moody, I don’t just like 
your terms. I don’t like to be under obligations to 
you,’’ and that is about the way with sinners; they 
do not like to be under obligations to God. So this 
man says, ‘‘I would like to take it, but not on your 
terms. I will give you twenty-five cents for the 
Bible.’’ I know it is worth a good deal more than 
that; but suppose I take the twenty-five cents and 
the man goes home with the Bible under his arm, 
and his wife says, ‘‘John, were did you get that 
Bible?’’ He says, ‘‘I bought it.’’ It is no gift at 
all. He bought it. 

Now, don’t you see that it is a gift? All through 
the Bible it is called a gift. If it is a gift it must 
be without works—it must be without money. It 
would be no gift at allif you paid for it—if you paid 
a farthing. It is a gift from God. But you can 
spurnthe gift. Youcan trample it under your feet. 
You can say, ‘‘I will not have grace.’’ Then you 
must have judgment. If any man will not have 
grace he must have judgment. If a man will not 
have mercy he must have punishment. Is not that 
the teaching of the Scriptures? God says, “‘I 
delight in mercy; I want to give you the gift of 
eternal life.’’ ‘‘The wages of sin is death.’’ Man 
has got to take his wages whether he wants to or not. 
‘‘The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is 
eternal life.’’ 

Now, the question comes, To whom does He offer 
this gift?—to the righteous? He offers it to the 


GRACE. 493 


world. He offers it to sinners; andif a man can 
prove that he isa sinner I can prove that he has got 
a Savior. If man can prove he was born into this 
world I can prove that God has provided a Savior 


forhim. ‘‘God gave Him up,” says Paul, “‘freely 
for us all.’’ I like these texts that have these 
sweeping assertions that take us allin. ‘‘God gave 


him up for us all.’’ Christ did not die for Paul any 
more than He did for the rest of us. He tasted | 
death for us all. ‘‘That is what I believe,’’ says a 
man down there, ‘‘and every man will be saved.” 
Yes, every man that will lay hold of the cross will 
be saved. ‘If ye die in your sins, where I am ye 
cannot come.’’ If a man goes on sinning, violating 
the law of God, trampling it under his feet, and 
will not take the yoke of God upon him down here, 
do you think he is going into the kingdom of God? 
Do you think he will have any taste for heaven? 

In the second chapter of Titus, eleventh and 
twelfth verses, Paul says, ‘‘For the grace of God 
that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.”’ I 
can imagine a man says: ‘‘Do- you think that is 
really true?’ ‘‘Yes.’’ ‘‘What! does that mean 
drunkards?’ ‘‘Yes, every drunkard in Cleveland.’’ 
“What! do you mean all these harlots that are walk- 
ing the streets to-night?” ‘‘Every harlot. The grace 
of God hath appeared, bringing salvation to every 
man.’’ ‘‘What! do you mean gamblers?’ ‘‘Yes, 
every gambler.’’ ‘‘And these murderers down here - 
in prison, and some that haven’t been caught?” - 
“Yes; every murderer. The grace of God hath 
appeared, bringing salvation to a// men,’’.. If men 
are lost, it is because they spurn God’s gift. They - 


494 GRACE. 


spurned His offer of mercy. It is not that God 
don’t offer it. It is as free as the air we breathe. 

I remember preaching upon the grace of God 
once in Chicago, to a fashionable congregation, and 
I was just hungering for some souls. I was anxious” 
that the grace of God might find some one there, 
and while I was preaching I was looking around to 
see if I could see any one that was anxious to be 
saved. At the close of the meeting I said, *‘If there 
is any one here that wants to be saved, I will be glad 
to stay and talk with him.’’ It was one of the cold- 
est nights of the winter, and they all got up and 
went out, and my heart sank within me. I looked 
all around and did not see any one wait. I got my 
overcoat, and was the last one to leave, as I sup- 
posed; but as I got to the door, I saw a man behind 
the furnace. He was crying asif his heart would 
break. I sat down by his side and I said, ‘*What is 
the trouble?’’ He said, ‘‘Well, you said something 
to-night that broke my heart.” ‘‘What is it?’’ “You 
said that the grace of God was for the likes of me.”’ 
I said, ‘‘That is good; I am gladit has reached 
you.’’ He thought he could not be saved. But it 
was for the likes of him. I talked with him, and 
found out what his trouble was. He was just one 
of those poor unfortunate men that liquor had got 
the mastery of, and, although it was one of the cold- 
est nights, he had nocoaton. He drank that up. 
He said that within the past six months he had 
drank up twenty thousand dollars. ‘‘And now,” 
said he, ‘‘my wife has left me, and my children, and 
my own father and mother have cast me off, and I 
expected to die here in the gutter one of these 
nights. I expected this was my last night.’’ He 


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GRACE. 497 


said, ‘‘I didn’t come in to hear you; I came in to 
get warm, but my heart is broken. Do you think 
the grace of God can save me—a poor, miserable, 
vile wretch like me?’’ I said, ‘‘Yes.’’ 

It was refreshing to preach the gospel of the Son 
of God to that poor man. I prayed with him, and 
after I prayed with him, he didn’t ask me for any 
money, but I took him to a place where he was pro- 
vided for for that night, and the next morning I hada 
friend go to the pawnbroker’s to get his coat—got 
his coat upon him, and in a little while he came out 
a decided Christian; and when Mr. Sankey and my- 
self went to Europe, I don’t know a brighter light 
in all the Western States than that young man. 
The grace of God found him. The grace of God 
saved him, and the grace of God has kept him. 

That is what the grace of Godis for. There is 
not a man, woman or child in Cleveland so far 
gone, but the grace of God can save him. What 
we want is, as Christians, to be up and publishing 
the tidings— proclaiming the glorious gospel of 
Christ. It is a gospel of glad tidings. My friends, 
make haste. Take the torch of salvation and carry 
it down into the dark lanes, and dark alleys, and 
dark homes, and light them up with the glorious 
gospel of the Son of God. Jesus is mighty to save. 
“‘His name shall be called Jesus for He shall save 
His people from their sins.’’? He is a mighty Savior, 
but the world don’t know it. The world has been 
deceived by the devil—has been blinded by the god 
of this world. What we want is to tell them that 
Christ is able to save, and that He is ready to save. 

There is a story told of William Dorset, that 


Yorkshire farmer. He was preaching one night in 
28 


498 GRACE. 


London, and he made the remark that there was 
not a man in all London so far gone but that the 
grace of God could save him. That is a very strong 
assertion, for there are some pretty hard cases in 
London, a city of four million inhabitants. You go 
into the east of London and see that awful pool of 
iniquity —the stream of death and misery flows right 
on. But he made that statement, that there was 
not a man or woman in all London so far gone but 
that the grace of God could save them. It fastened 
in a young lady’s mind. She went home that night, 
and the next morning she went to see the York- 
shire farmer. She said, ‘‘I heard you preach last 
night, and I heard you say that there was not a 
man so far gone in all London but that the grace of 
God could save him.’’ She said, ‘‘Did you really 
mean it?’’ ‘‘Why,’’ he said, ‘‘certainly I meant 
it.’’ ‘‘And do you think that there is not a man in 
all London but that can be saved if he will be?’’ 
‘‘Why, certainly,’’ said Mr. Dorset, ‘‘not a man.’’ 
‘‘Well,’’ she said, ‘‘I am a missionary and I work 
down in the East End of London, and I have 
found a man there who says that there is no hope 
for him. He is dying, and I can’t make him believe 
that there is any hope for him. I wish you would 
go and see him.’’ The man of God said he would 
be glad to go. She took him down one of those 
narrow streets until they came toanold filthy build- 
ing. She said, “‘I think, perhaps, you can manage 
him better alone.’. It was a five-story building. 
He went up stairs to the upper story and found a 
young man lying there upon some straw; there was 
no bed. Ah! the way of the transgressor is hard! 
He had got clear down into great poverty and want, 


GRACE. 499 


and there he was sick and dying. Mr. Dorset bent 
over him, whispered into his ear and called him 
friend. The young man looked up at him aston- 
ished. ‘*You are mistaken, sir, in the person. You 
have got in the wrong place.’’ ‘‘How is that?’ 
asked Mr. Dorset. ‘‘Well, sir, I have no friend; Iam 
friendless.’’ He said, ‘‘You have a friend.’’ Then 
he told him of the sinner’s friend. He told him how 
Christ loved him. The young man shook his head, 
echrist don't love me.’*) “Why not?’?* “1 have 
sinned against Him all my life.’’ ‘“‘I don’t care if 
you have. He loves you still and He wants to save 
you.’’ And he preached Christ to him there. He 
told him of the glorious grace of God. He told 
him that God could save him, and he read to him out 
of the Bible. The light of the gospel began to dawn 
upon that darkened mind, and the first sign of a 
new life was, his heart went out toward those whom 
he had injured, and he said, ‘“‘If I could only know 
that my father would forgive me I could die in this 
garret happy.’’ He asked him where his father 
lived. He said, ‘‘In the West End of London.” 
Mr. Dorset said, ‘‘I will go up and see him and will 
ask him if he will not forgive you.’’ The young 
man shook his head. ‘‘I don’t Want you to do that. 
Why, sir, my father has disowned me. He has 
disinherited me. My father has had my name taken 
off the family record. He does not own me any 
more as his boy. I am as dead, sir, to him. If you 
go and talk to him about me he will get angry and 
order you out of the house, and you have been so 
kind to me I don’t want your feelings hurt.’’ Mr. 
Dorset went up to the West End of London toa 
most beautiful place and rang the bell. A servant 


500 GRACE. 


dressed in livery came to the door. Mr. Dorset 
inquired if his master was in, and was told that he 
was. He was taken into the drawing-room, and 
while he was waiting there for the man of the 
house to come down, he looked around him. 
There was not a thing that heart could desire that 
had not been laid out on that beautiful home. By 
and by the man came into the room. Mr. Dorset 
got up and went across the room to shake hands 
with him. He said, ‘‘You have a son, sir, by the 
name of Joseph, have you not?’’ The father’s hand 
fell by his side. His countenance changed. Mr. 
Dorset saw that he had made him very angry. He 
said in a great rage, ‘‘No, sir. Andif you have 
come here to talk to me about that worthless vaga- 
bond I want you to leave my house. I don’t allow 
any one to mention his name in my presence. He 
has been dead to me for years, and if you have 
been to him you have been deceived. He cannot be 
relied upon.’’ He turned on his heel to go out 
‘of the room, to leave him. Mr. Dorset said, ‘‘Well, 
he is your boy yet. He won’t be long.’’ The 
father turned again; ‘‘Is my Joseph sick’’ ‘“‘Yes, 
your boy is at the point of death, sir. He is dying. 
I have not come here to ask you to take him home, 
or to ask you to give him anything, sir; I will see 
that he has a decent burial. All I want is to have 
you tell me that you forgive him, and let him die 
in peace.'” The great heart of the father was 
broken, and he said, ‘‘Forgive him? Oh, I would 


have forgiven him long ago if I had known he 
wanted it. Forgive him! Certainly. Can you take 


me to him?’’ The man of God said he would take 
him to him, and they got into a carriage and were 


GRACE. 501 


soon on their way; and when the father reached 
that garret he could hardly recognize his boy, all 
mangled and bruised by the fall of sin. The first 
thing the boy said to his father was, ‘‘Father, can 
you forgive me? Will you forgive me?’’ ‘‘Oh, 
Joseph, I would have forgiven you long ago if I 
had known you wanted it.’” He met him in grace 
right there. The father said, “‘Let my. servant 
take you in the carriage and take you home. I 
cannot let you die in this fearful place.’’ ‘‘No, 
father, I am not well enough to be moved. I shall 
die soon, but I can die happy now that I know you 
have forgiven me; for I believe that God, for 
Christ’s sake has forgiven me.’’ And in a little 
while, with his head on the bosom of his father, 
Joseph breathed his last, and passed back to his 
God. 

Yes, my friends, that father was willing to for- 
give him when he knew that the boy wanted grace. 
Now God knows all your hearts, and if you want 
grace to-day the God of all grace will meet you. 
He will meet you in mercy. He will meet you 
in pity. He will bless you to-day. He wants to 
bless you. Sin ruins, sin casts down, but the grace 
of God lifts up. O, may the grace of God lift you 
up to-day out of the pit and place your feet on the 
Rock of Ages. 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 


COME. 


I want this audience to-night, while I am speak- 
ing, to pray. I would like to ask you friends that 
are not Christians to pray. I would like to give 
you a little prayer, and I would like to ask you to 
make it all the time I am speaking: ‘‘Lord, if 
these things are so, show them to me.’’ I don’t 
want you to believe one solitary word I say that is 
not from God. If it is not true, I don’t want you 
to believe it. But if it is, you certainly ought to be 
honest enough to want to know it. That is per- 
fectly fair. No skeptic, no infidel, no deist, no athe- 
ist really can object to making that prayer; but if 
there is an atheist here, let him make this prayer: 
‘Tf there be a God, let Him show these things to 
me, if they are true.’’ Let us be willing to-night 
to let the God that created us teach us. 

Now, the text I want to call your attention 
to is in the seventh chapter of Genesis, the first 
verse. It is atruth that a great many of you, per- 
haps, don’t believe. A great many people have the 
idea that no such thing ever took place. But if you 
make that prayer we will find out. ‘‘If it is true, 
Lord, show it tome. Reveal it to me.”’ 

‘And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and 
all thy house into the ark.’’ That word ‘‘come’”’ 

592 


COME. 503 


occurs all through the Bible. It begins in the first 
book of the Bible and runs clear through Revelation. 
The prophets took it up and their cry was, ‘‘Come, 
come, ’’ 

When that blessed Master came, He took up that 
same cry, ‘‘Come unto Me all ye that labor.’’ When 
the apostles commenced to work after Christ left 
the earth, they kept ringing out that word ‘‘Come.”’ 
We find it in the last chapter of Revelation. 

The first time it occurs in the Bible is in this text 
I have to-night. God Almighty was the preacher, 
and He was calling Noah in out of the coming 
storm, out of the coming judgment that was coming 
upon the earth. One hundred and twenty years 
before that Noah had received the most awful com- 
munication that ever came from heaven to earth. 
God told him that He was going to destroy the earth 
on account of sin. Sin sprang into this world full 
grown. The first man born of woman was a mur- 
derer. I suppose that we, at this age, know noth- 
ing about the sins of the antediluvians. Men had 
time then to carry out their plans, and their iniqui- 
ties, and their sins. They lived a thousand years, 
nearly. I don’t know what would happen now if 
men should live so long in sin. It says in the sixth 
chapter of Genesis and the fifth verse, ‘‘And God 
saw that the wickedness of man was great in the 
earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his 
heart was only evil continually.’’ The wickedness of 
earth had come up to God. God purposed that He 
would destroy the earth. But He gave them one 
hundred and twenty long years’ grace—one hun- 
dred and twenty long years to repent; and if 
they had repented like Nineveh, God might have 


504 COME. 


spared the Old World, and might have spared those 
antediluvians. But I can imagine they talked very 
much as men talk now, and when Noah brought 
them that message they mocked him; they laughed 
at the idea; they scoffed at the idea. ‘‘God going 
to destroy this world! You don’t suppose we are 
fools enough to believe that, do you? God going to 
destroy His own world! God going against the law 
of nature! Why, it is against our reason! It is 
against our intellect! We don’t see any reason for 
it. God going to destroy the world? Away with 
such a God as that! We won’t have anything to do 
with a God of judgment—a God who is going to 
judge this world on account of sin.” 

Then there was another class of people, undoubt- 
edly, that were atheists, that took the ground that 
the world came by chance, that there was no God, 
and that Noah was a fanatic. Some of them, per- 
haps, went so far as to think he was out of his mind. 
If they had had insane hospitals in those days they 
would have tried to get him into one of them. 
‘Poor, deceived, deluded man! God going to de- 
stroy the world! God going to drown all in it—our 
great men, our mighty men, our kings, our princes, 
our rulers, our governors, and our wise men! Away 
with such a doctrine! We don’t believe it.”’ 

Noah and his family stood alone on that dark day. 
There was not a man to stand with him, and God 
told him to build an ark, and the God of heaven was 
the architect. He told him how to build it, and I 
will venture to say that every dollar’s worth of ma- 
terial that went into that ark came out of Noah's 
property. He could not get a manto help him. 
When you built this church you got every man you 


COME. 505 


could to help you build it. But there was not a man 
that would help Noah build that ark. He had to 
pay the expenses alone. They laughed at the idea, 
They mocked at the idea. They ridiculed the idea. 
Why, the strongest thing against you, Noah, is that 
no one believes with you; the great men and all the 
leading minds of the present day differ with you. 
They don’t believe there is going to be a flood— 
that there is going to be a deluge and a judgment; 
there arenosignsinthe heavens. The astronomers 
look up in the heavens and they say, ““We see no 
sign of acoming storm ora coming judgment. It 
is all a delusion, God is not going to destroy the 
world. I don’t believe it. And then we havea 
majority with us. They all go with us, and you 
stand alone.’’ Buttheoldmantoiledon. Day after 
day you can see him there at that ark. He must 
have known when he received the commission to 
build the ark, how much sport they would make of 
it—how he would become the butt of ridicule, how 
he would become the song of the drunkard and how 
he would become the laughing stock of that day. 
If they had the theaters in those days I have not 
any doubt but that they would have Noah’s Ark on 
the stage and make all manner of sport of it. Lec- 
turers went up and down the country warning these 
antediluvians against fanaticism, and to be careful 
about being carried away with that delusion. If 
they had newspapers in those days once in a while 
there would have been a reporter coming around to 
see how he was getting along, and he would write 
up an article on ‘‘Noah’s Delusion,’’ or ‘‘Noah’s 
Ark.’’ If they had the telegraph in those days every 
once in a while there would have been a telegraphic 


506 COME. 


dispatch sent around the world about Noah’s Ark 
and about the deluded man spending all his money 
and all his time upon that ark. And then there was 
that gray-haired old man and his family, his three 
sons and their wives, only eight in all, and yet he 
is building an ark large enough to accommodate 
hundreds and thousands! Deluded man! Gone 
clean mad! Some one has suggested the idea that 
Noah must have been deaf or he could not have 
withstood the scoffs and the jeers of that day. But 
if he was he had an ear to hear God. He commaned 
with God, and when God spoke to him, he could 
hear and he obeyed. Well, a hundred years passes 
away. There is no sign of a coming storm, and 
these men are increasing in their infidelity and in 
their unbelief. They go on, scoffing and mocking 
and ridiculing. And the men that helped Noah, his 
carpenters there whom he hired, undoubtedly if 
they went into a saloon and began to drink or play 
cards, men would make fun of them. ‘‘Ah, you 
are helping that old lunatic there to make the ark.’’ 
But I can imagine they would say, ‘‘Noah’s money 
is as good as any. We don’t believe in his old ark; 
we don’t believe in the delusion, but we are after 
his money, that is all.”’ 

There are a good many men to-day that talk in 
the same way about the ark that God has provided. 
The day of scoffing is not passed. The day of 
mocking, and the day of ridicule is not passed. 
Many a man is kept out of the kingdom of God be- 
cause he cannot stand the ridicule of some scoffing, 
sneering, contemptible wretch, who would trample 
his mother’s prayers, and feelings, and her Bible, 


COME. 507 


and all of her precepts under his feet, and mock at 
the idea of his mother’s God. 

Time passes on. The hundred and twenty years 
have expired. The merriment increases. Noah 
has got his ark done. All the contracts are closed. 
During the past hundred and twenty years many a 
time has he stopped the work, perhaps, on the ark 
and gone out and warned his countrymen. He told 
them of the coming judgment. But they mocked 
the old man. They didn’t believe him. But now 
the ark is finished. I don’t know what time of the 
year it was finished; perhaps it was in the spring. 
In that spring Noah did not plant anything. 

““Now, surely, he will come to want. Every year 
he has planted; like others he has provided for the 
future, but now he has not planted anything. He 
is preparing to go into that ark. He says that this 
is the last year. The world is going to be destroyed. 
What an absurdity.’’ When we talk now about 
God’s burning up this world men scoff at the idea, 
**God destroy the world! He is not going to do any- 
thing of the kind. The world is improving, grow- 
ing better all the while. What is God going to de- 
stroy the world for if the world is growing better, 
and if men are getting on so well, accumulating 
wealth and great fortunes. Away with such a delu- 
sion! God is not going to burn up the world. There 
is no God of judgment. God is not going to judge 
the world for sin. To be sure, they put His Son to 
death. But then he just winked at that. He is not 
going to hold them responsible for that. It is all a 
delusion.’”’ That is the talk of the world to-day. 
That is the cry. 

I can imagine when the last year expired—the one 


508 COME. 


hundred and twenty years were up, and the day of 
grace was closing, those men just increased in their 
scoffing and their infidelity. 

Noah at last moves into the ark. That was just 
the climax of the whole thing. A most absurd 
thing. Why didn’t he wait until the storm began? 
There was time enough to move; then to build an 
ark on dry land, as if the storm was going to get up 
there; and if it did, do you think that thing would 
float? They made all manner of sport of it, and 
ridiculed it. Visitors came to look at it. You can 
see them looking around; going up into the different 
sories of it. If they saw Noah around, they would 
say, ‘‘That’s him, that’s him there!’’ They would 
just point the finger of scorn at him, ‘deluded 
man!’’ The business men of that day undoubtedly 
said that ark was not worth as much when Noah 
got it done as the nails they put into it. If it was 
put up at auction it would not bring any more than 
what it was worth for kindling wood. It was not 
good for a house to live in, and you could not make 
a barn of it. Yct that man had put all his wealth, 
probably, in that ark. For years he had. gathered 
up all he had and putitin that ark. The world 
looked upon it with scorn and contempt, but God 
called him in, ‘‘Come, thou and all thy house, into 
the ark.’’ And, thank God, his children went in 
with him. Noah lived so that his children had con- 
fidence in his piety. I have great admiration for 
Noah. If aman could live in that dark day, with 
those scoffers and unbelievers all about him, and 
command his children so that they followed him, 
he must have lived right at home. He must have 
been a true man, and he must have walked with 


COME. 509 


God Almighty. And after they had gone in, God 
gave the earth seven days more of grace. He added 
seven days to the hundred and twenty years. Un- 
doubtedly he gave them that time torepent. If they 
had repented then they might have been saved. 
But they did not repent. They mocked at the idea, 
and they said to Noah when he told them that he 
had built that ark so large that he might preserve 
his seed upon the earth, the fowls of the air, and 
animal creation, they mocked at the idea. ‘‘How 
are you going to get the wild fowls and beasts of 
the desert into that ark? How are you going to 
get the wild animals from their caves and dens 
into that ark?’’ And they went on mocking at the 
idea. It was a most absurd idea. 

Ican imagine that the first thing that alarmed 
and aroused them was one morning to their surprise 
they saw the heavens black with the fowls of the 
air, coming from the corners of the earth, two by 
two, mated by God, and as they came to that ark, 
Noah took them in. And the animals came in from 
their dens and caves, from the corners of the earth, 
and they came up to the ark, two by two. The lion 
and the lamb passed in side by side, and as they 
looked down at the earth, they could see little in- 
_ sects creeping up towards that ark two by two, as if 
pushed up by some unseen hand, and they cried out, 
““Merciful God, what does this mean?’’ They are 
alarmed now. That was the first thing, probably, 
that woke them up. Would to God they had re- 
pented then, and cried for mercy. But undoubtedly 
their wise men said, ‘‘We don’t exactly understand 
it, but there is no danger. Our astronomers tell us 
there is no sign in the heavens; the old sun shines 


510 COME. 


as it did two thousand years ago, and the stars shine 
at night as bright as ever; the lambs are skipping 
on the hill sides as usual, the cattle are grazing on 
a thousand hills; business was never more prosper- 
ous. The world never looked more promising. 
There is no sign of a coming storm. We don’t un- 
derstand this strange thing; we admit we can’t un- 
derstand it, but then there is no sign; be quiet.’’ If 
some one was alarmed they would say, ‘‘He is weak- 
minded.’’ ‘That is what young men say of their 
‘mothers now; that they are weak-minded women, 
deluded, carried away. Religion may be a good 
thing for women and weak-minded people. O, may 
God forgive the young man that speaks of his 
mother in-that way. 

It may be the next thing that took place God shut 
the door. Noah did not shutit. The Almighty 
shut the door. The last year had come, the last 
month, the last week, the last day, the last hour, 
the last minuute had come. When God shut the 
door the day of grace was over; the day of mercy 
was ended. When once the master of the house is 
risen up and shut the door, there is no hope. You 
may cry for mercy then, but it is too late. A man 
said that when he died he would go to heaven and 
he would knock and ask for Mercy, and Mercy would 
let him in. A man said you need not ask for Mercy 
there; for Mercy has not been at home for eighteeen 
hundred years. Mercy is abroad in the earth. It 
is too late to ask for mercy.’’ This is the day of 
mercy. This is the day of grace. This is the ac- 
ceptable time of the Lord. This is the day the door 
is wide open. God says, ‘‘Come in.’’ God calls you 


COME. 511 


in out of the coming storm and out of the coming 
judgment. 

I can imagine some of you say, ‘‘Moody, you don’t 
believe there was such a thing asa flood, and God 
shut that door?’’ I believe it just as much as I be- 
lieve that Jesus Christ came into this world. Listen 
to what the Son of God has to say: “‘As it was in 
the days of Noah, so shall it be in the coming of the 
Son of Man; they were eating and drinking and 
marrying and giving in marriage, until the flood 
came and took them all away.’’ It came suddenly. 
Jesus Christ believed in the flood. But when once 
the Master of the house had risen up and shut the 
door, it was too late. 

Men say, ‘‘I can repent any time.’’ Do not de- 
ceive yourself. There is such a thing as a man sin- 
ning away the day of grace. There is such a thing 
as aman going on rejecting and rejecting the Spirit 
of God until the last hour and the last moment has 
come, and it is too late. 

Those antediluvians found it was too late. The 
door was shut. I don’t know when the storm broke 
upon them. It might have been in thenight. And 
what a night it was! Did this world ever witness 
such a night as that? 

I can imagine as the sun went down, little did 
they think it was the last time they were to look 
upon it, as it shone upon that ark and the door was 
closed. The day of grace wasended. The day of 
mercy was over,and there was no hope. Their doom 
was sealed. The door that shut Noah and his family 
in shut them out. That night, perhaps at midnight, 
they could hear in the distance the thunder. The 
sound grew louder and louder, until the storm 


512 COME. 


broke upon them. Perhaps the scoffers and the 
triflers in those days began to mock and say, ‘‘ Well, 
now Noah will say this is his flood. Noah, now in 
the ark, will begin to rejoice and say this is what he 
was telling us about.’’ But by-and-by their mock- 
ing was all gone. There could not be a scoffer 
found. And do you know there is a time coming 
when there cannot be a scoffer found on the face of 
the earth? There is a time coming when these men 
that are mocking at the Gospel of Jesus Christ will 
bow the knee tothe Lord Jesus. They will ery— 
we have the prayer'on record—*‘ They will call upon 
the mountains and the rocks and the hills to cover 
them from the wrath of the Lamb.’’ Their ery for 
mercy will be too late. 











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